


The Russian Menagerie

by shessocold



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: 70s, Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, Blow Jobs, Cold War, F/F, F/M, Flashbacks, Getting Together, Getting to Know Each Other, Homosexuality, M/M, Period Typical Attitudes, Public Blow Jobs, Spies & Secret Agents, Strangers to Lovers, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy AU, Vienna
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-14
Updated: 2018-09-14
Packaged: 2019-07-12 05:44:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15988865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shessocold/pseuds/shessocold
Summary: The Iron Curtain won't stop Sirius Black.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, I'd like to sincerely apologize to John Le Carré. What he did beautifully with a chisel, I tried poorly to imitate with a blunt rock. If you haven't read Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, go do so right this instant.
> 
> Moving over, this is set in the late '70s, which means that I've taken some (implicit) liberties with the ages of the characters, both in absolute and relatively to each other. Tonks is a young spy, but she's not fresh out of high school, and so on. If I made any glaring errors, ~~it's because I'm really bad at math~~ it's an homage to JK Rowling.
> 
> Fawkes is Dumbledore's _nom de guerre_.
> 
> A huge THANK YOU to my artist, [Shania](https://saveyourself13.tumblr.com/), who is extremely talented and also possibly an actual saint.

_June_

Remus’ eyes, caught in the warm afternoon light, are the exact same colour as the glass of tea he’s sipping. Sirius, not for the first time, finds himself staring.

“Something wrong?” 

Remus has spoken lazily, the way he generally does when he’s sober and relatively at ease — as ease as people in their position can ever hope to be, that is. And yet, Sirius understands him well enough to know what’s stirring under the placid surface of his handsome brow: the paranoia, the frantic drafting of contingency plans, the weighing of options... 

“Come with me,” he says, abruptly. Remus blinks, nonplussed. “Come with me,” insists Sirius, the mere idea filling his heart with a peculiar joyful feeling he didn’t know himself capable of. “Back home, to England. I’ll put you up. No obligations, mind, I understand if you don’t feel the same way, it’s just that I...” 

He trails off, the enormity of what he had been about to say hitting him all of a sudden. Remus, his bright eyes still trained on Sirius’ face, takes another sip of his tea. His face is unreadable. Sirius feels positively deflated. 

“Right, scrap that. Are you staying for dinner? I wouldn’t say no to a couple more rounds of blinis, if I’m being hon—” 

“Do you mean it?” 

“What? About the blinis?” 

“About wanting me to come to England.” 

“Oh. Oh, yeah. Of course I do. We’ll have to get you a job, eventually, but like I said I could definitely put you up in the beginning. I’d love it, actually. I might have to call in a couple of favours to get you into the country, but it shouldn’t be too much trouble, all things considered...” 

“Actually,” says Remus, setting his glass on the table. Sirius stares at his face, transfixed. Remus grins — the merest upturning of the corners of his mouth, really, but exhuberant in contrast with his recent bouts of melancholy — and covers Sirius' hand with one of his own. “Actually, I’m quite positive that getting me into your country won’t be any trouble at all, love. I have information that could turn your precious Circus upside down. How soon can you cable London? I need to speak to Lucius Malfoy.” 


	2. Chapter 2

_May_

“Unconvincing.” 

“Excuse me?” 

“Your attempts to flirt with the barmaid: completely unconvincing,” repeats the man, turning on his stool. He speaks German with an accent that Sirius can't really place, and has a knowing grin on his handsome face. 

“I don't know what you're talking about,” says Sirius, trying to decide if he should just punch him in the face and be done with it. “But I _strongly_ suggest that you shut the fuck up, mate.” 

The man, much to Sirius' irritation, laughs. 

“Oh, relax,” he says, leaning in closer. “Takes one to know one, doesn't it?” 

** 

They don't even kiss – the man goes straight for the buttons of Sirius' jeans. Sirius leans back against the cool marble pedestal of the Soviet War Memorial, a bit dazzled by the suddenness of the whole thing, his eyes half-closed, his heart beating wildly with anticipation. It's a very dark night, moonless. The man's hand is warm around Sirius' cock. 

“Tell me,” he whispers into Sirius ear, his tone smooth, the scent of his skin dry and pleasant, “Are all the men in Vienna as handsome as you?” 

The question, as playful as the man's tone was, rubs Sirius the wrong way. 

“I wouldn't know,” he says, coolly. “I don't make a habit of picking up strangers in bars.” 

The man stifles a laugh. 

“Right,” he agrees, his slick thumb rubbing the sensitive spot just below the head of Sirius' cock. “I'm sure you don't.” 

“It was all your idea!” insists Sirius, horribly aware of the breathless quality the man's ministrations are injecting into his voice. “I was just minding my business. I should not have followed you here.” 

“Do you mean that? I can stop anytime.” 

“Don't you dare,” says Sirius, through gritted teeth. Another muffled snort of laughter on the man's part. 

“That's more like it,” he says, genially, and he resumes his stroking. His face is now so close to Sirius' that he can feel the heat radiating off it, and smell the alcohol on his breath. _Drunk, then_ , Sirius thinks, vaguely surprised – the man doesn't sound drunk at all. “Explains a lot,” he says, out loud. 

“Huh?” 

“You're drunk.” 

“You call this drunk? Drunk means you can't stand,” says the man, grabbing Sirius' hand with his free one. “ _No part_ of you can stand,” he adds, resting it against his erection. Sirius moans. 

“All right, all right, I take it back, just keep on doing what you're... oh, _Christ_ ,” he cries out, in English, his knees going weak as he comes all over the man's hand. “ _Jesus Christ._ ” 

The man staggers backwards, swearing under his breath, as quick as if Sirius had burned him. 

“Are you OK?” asks Sirius, apologetically, in German. “I'm sorry, I should have warned you...” 

“Oh, for fuck's sake, it's not that,” says the man, and he sounds really nervous. His accent, which Sirius still can't place, seems thicker all of a sudden. “It's just... look, I have to go now. Bye.” 

“Wait!” 

“What?” 

“Can we... well, can I see you again?” 

The man laughs, this time humourlessly. 

“Never. Goodbye,” he says, and he leaves Sirius standing half-naked and very confused in the darkness. 

** 

_July_

Snape, who has known him for years and fancies himself a good judge of character, despises Black from the bottom of his heart. The sight of him lounging lazily on Moody's sofa is enough to make him turn around and put his hat back on. 

“Absolutely _not_ ,” he says, coldly, to Tonks. “Bring me back to my house.” 

“Sit down,” says Moody, none too politely. “You need to listen to this story.” 

Black, who hasn't even bothered pretending to stand up when Snape and Tonks entered the room, gives them one of his usual lazy smirks. _He enjoys seeing me getting bossed around,_ thinks Snape, going pale with rage. Tonks, looking awkward, finds herself a chair. 

“Tell Snape what happened,” says Moody to Black, a warning note in his voice. “Make it quick.” 

“Good evening, Snape,” says Black, with a sneer. Snape allows himself to imagine sound that his nose would make if someone were to break it with a pistol. “Long time no see.” 

“Indeed,” he says. “I was starting to hope that you had died, but alas.” 

“Not from lack of trying,” pipes in Tonks, grinning. She and Black are related somehow, Snape remembers, and the notion does nothing to improve his already not especially positive opinion of her. 

“Enough,” says Moody, sternly. “Go on, Black.” 

Black clears his throat. 

“It happened in Vienna,” he starts, without looking at any of the others. “And the circumstances, frankly, don't matter.” 

“I think you'll find that you're not the judge of that,” says Snape. “Especially not when I've been roused from my bed and asked to come here and listen to your inane retelling of whatever adventure you think you've had.” 

“Hadn't he retired?” snaps Black, in perhaps the most genuine display of emotion Snape has seen from him, at least since the Bulgarians got to Potter. _He's scared,_ he thinks, finding that he's suddenly in no hurry to go back to Spinner's End. _He's_ genuinely _scared._

“Tell him everything you've told me,” orders Moody, completely disregarding Black's question. 

Black stays silent for a while more, a vein pulsing in his pale temple, his breath quick. Snape briefly wonders if he's about to do something rash. The seconds tick by. 

“As I said, it happened in Vienna,” says Black, eventually, and he begins his story. 

** 

_Early June_

The Russian agent’s room is blissfully quiet and empty. Sirius, hand still on the boltchain, pauses for a second in order to let his eyes get used to the darkness. He doubts the room is being watched by anyone bright enough to recognize a burglary in progress, but still — better safe than sorry. 

_Right, let’s make this quick,_ he thinks, heading for the vague outline of the Russian’s open suitcase, _and if everything goes as planned, there might be time for a couple more pints_

A sudden rustling of bedclothes. 

“Dolohov?”, calls a male voice, its grogginess more than a little tinged with irritation. Sirius freezes. 

_Shit._

“Er,  _da_ ,” he offers, hoping that his interlocutor is either sleepy enough or drunk enough to buy it. 

No such luck. 

“Who is it?” asks the other man, this time in German, his tone a lot sharper. “Answer me.” 

“Wait a second,” says Sirius, in German as well, feigning clueslessness. “Isn’t this Anni’s room? Goodness, I knew I should have said no to that last round...” 

“No,  _you_  wait a second,” says the man, and then three things happen in such quick succession that Sirius has absolutely no chance to react: the lights go on, forcing him to blink, the man on the bed points a pistol at Sirius’ head, and Sirius — to his complete shock — recognizes him at once. 

“You!” he shouts, in frank outrage. “You’re Dolohov’s  _lover_?” 

“What?” says the man, sounding genuinely confused (but not confused enough that he’d lower his pistol). “No!” 

“You are! That is disgusting,” Sirius hears himself say, as if his life weren’t completely at the mercy of the man he’s berating. “No wonder you end up trolling the bars, ugly old beast like that waiting at home.” 

“Are you... are you quite done?” says the man, finger steady on the trigger. He looks bewildered. Sirius spots an almost empty bottle of vodka on his nightstand, which makes his quick reactions all the more commandable. “You’re with the Service, aren’t you?” 

“With the _what_?” replies Sirius, slipping automatically — if not particularly convincingly, on account of the fact that he’s pretty tipsy himself — into his cover story. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, mate. The name is Schwarz, from Düsseldorf. I’m in the wool business, import-export with Australia. Pleased to meet you. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a hot little minx waiting for me somewhere in this damned hotel.” 

“Like hell you do,” says the man. “There’s no girl, there’s no import-export, and you’re as English as they come.” 

“Well, you’ve got it half-right, my mum is,” says Sirius, doing his best to block out the memory of how his German façade had gotten broken to begin with. “It was not a crime to be bilingual, last I checked.” 

“Do I look like a complete idiot?” says the man, his face impassive. “I know who you are. And let me tell you — you should really come up with a more creative fake name, Black.” 

*** 

“But wait,” says Tonks, her brow furrowed slightly. “How did the Russian know who you were?” 

“I expect he had been very diligent in studying the pictures provided by Moscow Centre,” says Snape, a hateful little smirk dancing on his thin lips.  _He knows,_  realizes Sirius, repressing the impulse to beat him to a pulp.  _He knows_  everything. 

“Something like that, yeah,” he concedes, addressing Tonks. “Very talented. He was extremely thourough in everything he did.” 

“I bet he was,” says Snape, melliflously. Sirius clenches his fists so tightly that his fingernails dig painfully into his palms.  _Someday_ , he promises himself, soothingly,  _someday I’ll get to bash his fucking head in._ “Go on,” urges Moody, gruffly. “We haven’t got all night.” 

*** 

"Honestly, you've got the wrong man." 

"Oh, drop the act," says the man, a touch irritably. "What's the point? It's not like I'm actually going to shoot you, obviously." 

"Well, you could've fooled me," says Sirius, dryly. "Care to stop aiming that thing at me, perhaps?" 

The man rolls his eyes. 

"As you wish. I doubt Dolohov will be as easy to reason with if he comes back early and finds you here, though." 

"Oh," says Sirius, a touch lamely. "Alright, no, in that case. I'd rather we keep up the apparences." 

"So," begins the man, around a yawn. He's lowered his pistol slightly, which Sirius appreciates. "What the hell are you doing here?" 

"Stealing," says Sirius, deciding that candor is the best of his options. "Seeing if I can manage to finance my next trip back to the Motherland, as a matter of fact — having you lot cough up the money would be very patriotic indeed.” 

The man snorts. Sirius grins, pleased with the success of his little joke. There’s a brief pause, and then the man finally lowers his pistol all the way. 

“Anyway, I’m only sleeping here because there was a leak in my room,” he says, apropos of nothing. “Dolohov is supposed to stay out all night, and they had no other rooms, so...” 

“Right,” agrees Sirius, who’s feeling almost comically relieved by the explanation. Dolohov is a nasty old brute, and the idea of someone as handsome as the younger Russian sharing a bed with him feels dismal to him. “By the way, nice to meet you again, I suppose.” 

“You  _suppose_?” 

“Well, circumstances could be better, you’ll have to admit.“ 

“I don’t know,” says the man, setting his pistol down on the nightstand. “I like it when circumstances involve a fit bloke and a bedroom, personally.” 

Sirius stares at him, incredulous. 

“Wait, are you suggesting that we... ?” 

“I’m not suggesting anything,” says the man. His lascivious grin says otherwise. “But be advised that I’m going to get myself off in a few minutes, so if you’re not feeling, er, collaborative you might consider taking your leave.” 

“Christ,” mutters Sirius, under his breath. The man is in his underwear, and he can see the hard lenght of his cock through the fabric of his briefs. “But what if Dolohov comes back?” 

“He won’t,” says the man, with a shrug. “Besides, if we’re being honest, doesn’t the risk of getting caught make it much more exciting?” 

“You’re a devil,” says Sirius, in amazement. “Just a complete, utter pervert, aren’t you? You  _want_  to get caught.” 

The man grins. 

“Weird that you would imply that I’m an exhibitionist — I don’t remember being the one with his cock out in a public plaza.” 

“That was your idea and you bloody well know it,” says Sirius, grinning back like a fool. He’s overwhelmed by the desire to press his body against the man’s lean, muscular one — for a shag or for a spot of play-wrestling, he doesn’t care either way. The man gets up from the bed and closes the distance between them. 

“That’s true,” he says, planting himself mere inches from Sirius. “It was my plan all along. It had a serious flaw, though.” 

“Oh, and what would that be?” 

“That it didn’t involve you sucking my cock,” says the man, very seriously, and Sirius almost chokes on his own saliva. 

“What makes you think that I would?” he says, for the sake of teasing. “Maybe I’m not interested.” 

“I don’t know,” says the man, grabbing himself through his underwear. His beautiful cheekbones are flushed red. “I’m mainly going off the way you keep staring at it. Do you want me to show you, Black?” 

“Sure,” says Sirius, licking his lips in anticipation. 

“Say ‘please’, then.” 

“You fucking...” says Sirius, equal parts amused and turned on. “There’s no way I’m going to... oh, alright, alright.  _Please_.” 

The man laughs. 

“I can’t believe you actually said it,” he says, delighted. “All right, now I want to try again — if you want to see it, you have to ask again, but this time in Fren—“ 

“Oh, knock it off, you big bloody  _tease_ ,” says Sirius, as playfully as his mounting frustration will allow, and he gives the man the lightest of shoves. The man stumbles backwards, still chuckling, and catches himself just shy of falling onto the bed. 

“Shameful behaviour,” he says, wagging his finger. “Rest assured, the Queen will hear about this.“ 

*** 

“And so you ‘got to talking’,” repeats Snape, in a tone that once again suggests that he knows everything about the true nature of the encounter. “Remarkable.” 

“He’s a very affable person,” says Sirius, trying his hardest not to give Snape any satisfaction. “And deep down I could tell that he was almost ready to make the jump, so I made sure I kept him on the right track.” 

“Naturally,” says Snape, with a smirk. 

** 

The man — naked from the waist down — refuses to shed his undershirt, which would strike Sirius as slightly bizarre, were it not for the fact that he’s now completely focused on the task ahead. 

“So big,” he murmurs reverently, his face inches from the man’s erection. There’s a joke to be made about St. Basil’s Cathedral, he feels, but he’s too horny to word it properly. “So bloody perfect, too.” 

“Go on,” says the man, grabbing a handful of Sirius’ hair. “Let me see what you can do.” 

“For the glory of England,” says Sirius, in mock solemnity, and he swallows the whole thing. 

*** 

“And so we talked some more, and then we agreed to meet again later that week.” 

All very nice,” says Snape, stifling a yawn. “Edifying. I’m sure your new best friend’s minders agreed, if they saw nothing weird about you inviting him over for tea.” 

“You’ve sort of been in bad odour with the higher-ups at the Circus,” explain Tonks, half-apologetic, in response to Sirius’ unspoken outrage. “Ever since the whole Potter fiasco. Having your flat watched was the least we could do — I’m sure you understand.” 

“They must have assumed Black was the one getting ready to flip,” says Moody, impatiently. “Let’s get back to the story, if you don’t mind.” 

** 

It’s awkward at first, because the man — it occurs to Sirius that he still doesn’t know his name — is not even half as forward as he was on their previous encounters. Sirius guesses him to be sober, for a change. He’s combed his hair neatly to one side. 

“Cup of tea?” 

“No, thanks,” says the man, perched on the very edge of Sirius’ sofa cushion. “I don’t care for the way the English make their tea.” 

“Well,” says Sirius, fairly miffed. “You’re welcome to do the honours, if you feel you’d do such a great job.” 

The ghost of a grin flashes across the man’s handsome face. 

“It’s not a matter of ability, it’s down to the equipment you use. I’ll have to show you. Maybe next time I’ll get you a proper samovar.” 

Sirius swallows.  _Next time_. There shouldn’t have been a “this time”, either, strictly speaking. 

“Are you being watched?” 

The man shrughs. 

“I assume I am,” he says, fussing with the cuffs of his shirt. “We seldom are not.” 

“And what’s your story?” 

“Oh, the truth.” 

“ _What_?” 

The man grins again. He’s missing a decent chunk of his left upper incisor. Somehow, it suits him. 

“All right, part of the truth,” he concedes, his eyes still on the shirtsleeve he’s carefully rolling up. “I told Dolohov that we met in a bar, that you seemed to enjoy my company, and that the relationship might be worth pursuing. Moscow Centre — well, they know of your proclivities, so they saw nothing weird with my story.” 

Sirius makes a face. 

“My proclivities.” 

“Well, it’s their job to know this sort of thing, isn’t it? Imagine if they sent you some poor girl to try and pry your secrets out of you, how embarassing for everyone involved they would have been.” 

“So they sent you instead?” says Sirius, coolly. “Is that what this is?” 

The man rolls his eyes. Sirius glares at him. The man studies his fingernails. 

“I’m not a prostitute, and I have no interest in becoming one,” he says, eventually, looking up to meet Sirius’ eye. “If information had been what I was after, that’s what I’d gotten, without the need to get you off. I did it because I wanted to, and I don’t think anyone could blame me.” 

Sirius — in spite of himself — licks his lips, his cock stirring hopefully inside his pants. 

“What’s your name?” he asks, a bit gruffly, as a way to distract himself from the overwhelming desire to kiss the man’s still vaguely smirking mouth. “You never told me.” 

“Lupin,” says the man, and Sirius can’t bring himself to admit that he’d hoped for a first name. 

“Lupin,” he repeats, savouring the sound of it. “Well, nice to meet you, Lupin. Assuming that’s your real name, that is.” 

Lupin grins again. 

“It is,” he promises, amused, his fingers carding through his formerly neatly parted hair. “I know, well, almost  _too_  much about you, it’s only fair you’d get to know a bit about me.” 

Sirius snorts. 

“Now, don’t get cocky just because you managed to recognize me from your files.” 

Lupin leans back, his fingers laced behind his head and his long legs extended in front of him. He looks very pleased with himself. 

“Let me see,” he starts, addressing the ceiling in a conversational tone. “You were born in London in late 1949, heir to the Earl of Durham. Your birth was celebrated extravagantly, because you were the first boy born into the family in a generation. You were named Sirius, after your great-grandfather, and Orion, after your father. You have a younger brother, Regulus, whom you haven’t seen in years. You were sent to Eton, of course, and you got yourself thrown out in 1966, but not before meeting James Potter, who is arguably both the person you were ever closest to and the sole reason why you’d even consider joining the Service. You’ve been written out of your father’s will when you were sixteen, and you did not attend his funeral last year — actually, you haven’t been back to Britain at all since 1972. Unmarried, obviously. Your relationship with your bosses is shaky at best. And you’ve got a really nice cock, if I may, but I didn’t learn that from my files.” 

Sirius blinks, impressed. Lupin grins. 

“I did some cramming last night,” he admits, an impish look in his dark eyes. Sirius grins. 

“Well, that’s disappointing. I thought this was just the standard Moscow Centre holds you lot to.” 

“Maybe it is,” says Lupin, leaning forward slightly. Sirius can smell his cologne. “And I’m simply not a very good agent.” 

Sirius swallows. 

“Somehow,” he says, leaning on the armest of his armchair. “I doubt that.” 

“Why, thank you,” says Lupin, and he kisses him. 

** 

By the time they take it to Sirius’ bedroom, Lupin’s hair looks like it has never known a comb. 

“Lovely place you have,” he says, pausing by the window with his shirt half-unbottened and his neck covered in lovebites. “You’re lucky.” 

“Are you going to add a detailed description of my counterpane to your files?” 

Lupin snorts. 

“I might have to, actually,” he agrees, his reddened lips curved in a smirk. “Dolohov expects a report, after all.” 

“You could give him a vivid account of my erotic exploits.” 

“I could if I had seem them, I suppose. My data is not current.” 

Sirius gasps in mock outrage. 

“For shame,” he says, lifting his t-shirt over his head. “Let’s fix this.” 

** 

“They should use you as a model for those posters they do, you know the ones, with the handsome young comrades doing things shirtless for the glory of the Motherland.” 

Lupin grins. 

“I’m neither remotely blond enough nor brawny enough for that,” he says, draping his shirt neatly over the back of Sirius’ chair. “But flattery will get you everywhere, Black.” 

“Does ‘everywhere’ include the inside of your pants?” asks Sirius, tugging at Lupin’s belt from behind. 

“I can’t see why not,” says Lupin, turning around, a fingertip pressed thoughtfully to his lips. Sirius glances downwards. There’s a conspicuous erection tenting the fabric of Lupin’s trousers. The idea makes Sirius’ mouth go dry. 

“Take them off, c’mon.” 

“So greedy,” says Lupin, approvingly. “So  _eager_. Did you like what you saw last time?” 

“I said take them off,” says Sirius, as sternly as he can manage. “I mean now.” 

Lupin grins. 

“Used to getting your way, are you?” 

** 

“His cover was that he was in the delegation as a textile buyer — which he actually was, I suppose. He despised Dolohov, who might just about be the most unpleasant individual I’ve ever had the misadventure of meeting. Felt no loyalty to him. He was an orphan.” 

“Married?” asks Snape, exhamining his fingernails. 

“Not that I know of,” says Sirius, and he must have done a poor job of concealing his irritation, because Tonks gives him a look of great curiosity. “Anyway, he was alone in Vienna.” 

“They wouldn’t let his wife out of the country at the same time, anyway,” say Moody, ostensibly missing the subtext of the exchange. “He either didn’t have one, or he did and was unconcerned about leaving her behind. It’s all the same to us.” 

** 

“That was unbelievable,” says Lupin, his hair damp with sweat and a big silly grin on his lovely face. “Fucking unbelievable.” 

Sirius grins back, very proud of himself. 

“You’re quite easy to figure out,” he lies, affecting a yawn. “Really, mate, this whole thing is starting to get a bit boring.” 

Lupin snorts. 

“You’re an idiot,” he says, affectionately. “I’m really glad we met.” 

“Yeah,” says Sirius, smiling at the ceiling. “Same. Do you want to go again?” 

“Like you need to ask,” says Lupin, with a grin in his voice. “Oh, by the way, it’s Remus.” 

“Huh?” 

“My name. It’s Remus Ivanovich.” 

** 

“And this touching friendship started when, exactly?” 

“M... June,” says Sirius, catching himself. “Early June.” 

Snape lifts an eyebrow. 

“And you cabled London on the morning of the 16th, correct?” 

“Yes,” says Sirius, avoiding Moody's inquiring eyes. “The, ah, relationship needed time to progress.” 

“I see,” says Snape, flatly. 

“What did he tell you about his secret?” says Tonks, leaning forward. “What was his exact wording?” 

“Same thing I wrote in my cable to London,” says Sirius. “He said that he had information that could turn the Circus upside down.” 

“And you believed him?” 

“I had no reason not to,” says Sirius. “He seemed to know what he was talking about.” 

“His handlers probably weren't of the same opinion,” says Snape. “Or they wouldn't have let him associate so freely with a known foreign asset.” 

“On the contrary,” says Moody, to Sirius' private satisfaction. “It could be a sign that they trusted him as a recruiter, which would indicate that he was in fairly high esteem indeed.” 

“And that they weren't very bright,” adds Tonks, cheerfully. 

“We'll see about that,” says Snape, coldly. Behind him, Tonks rolls her eyes. “What was the answer from London?” 

“'We read you',” says Sirius. “And that was _hours_ after I'd sent mine, well into the night.” 

Snape blinks. 

“Nothing else?” 

“Not another word. I waited around all day, sent a follow-up cable – nothing. By evening I was getting paranoid.” 

“What was Lupin's reaction?” 

Sirius swallows. 

“He was away, visiting a factory some fifty miles from Vienna with the rest of his delegation. I hadn't... I thought it would have been wiser if he stayed behind, faked a fever or something, but he wanted it to be as clean a break as possible. Didn't want to arouse any suspicions.” 

“When were you to see him again?” 

“We had a d... a meeting planned by the Soviet War Memorial for 3 AM,” sas Sirius. “It couldn't be my place, this time, obviously. But he didn't show up.” 

“What was your fallback?” 

“A corner of St. Stephen's Cathedral, but he didn't show up there either. At that point, I was starting to panic. He had never missed a date before.” 

Moody coughs. 

“Did you have a code?” he asks, over Snape's smirk. “Something to let the other know if there was trouble?” 

“Yes,” says Sirius, vague for the sake of taking back what little control he can. “We had several, but he never used any of them. By morning I was worried sick.” 

“And what did you do?” 

“I went to his hotel,” says Sirius. “And it wasn't a nice experience. The entire delegation had done a runner, you see. Left through the backdoor, it appeared, baggage and all. Now the hotel wanted me to foot their bill.” 

Tonks laughs. 

“And what did you...?” she says, before noticing Moody's warning look. “Sorry, sorry, nevermind.” 

“I said I needed to phone my bank and climbed out of the bathroom door, of course,” says Sirius. “And then I took a taxi straight to the airport. I figured it was my best chance.” 

“And?” 

“Nothing, at first. There had been no flights to Moscow at all, they told me, not since the previous day. None scheduled until late in the afternoon, either. I was going crazy. But then one of the hostesses came through with the answer – as a personal favour, you see, she had taken a liking to me,” says Sirius, and then he pauses. 

“Go on,” urges Moody, not unkindly. 

Sirius swallows. 

“There had been a plane to Moscow, she told me,” he says, looking away from his interlocutors. “Very early in the morning. Unscheduled. The main attraction, she says, was a medical patient. A man in a coma, on a stretcher, his head all bandaged up. The plane had left at dawn.” 


	3. Chapter 3

“Maybe he _was_ unwell,” says Tonks, and Snape has the impression that she's repeating a previously offered suggestion. “He could have had an accident. A fall. You said he drank often, didn't he?”

Black shakes his head. 

“He was never properly drunk, he always kept his wits about him.” 

“Perhaps he told his, ah, boss about the details of the friendship you shared,” says Snape, sweetly. Black glares at him like he'd very much enjoy punching his face in. “That seems more likely than what you're insinuating.” 

“You have to admit it, Sirius,” says Tonks. “The timing was very narrow for London to have been involved.” 

“Not if they were quick,” says Moody. “Both in London and in Moscow, of course. It could have worked, in that case.” 

“Possibly,” concedes Snape, unconvinced. “Unlikely, though.” 

“Tell him what happened after that, Sirius,” urges Tonks, soothingly. 

“I found a letter,” mutters Black, his arms crossed. “Well, more of a diary, actually.” 

“Where?” says Snape, sharply. 

“In a dead letter-box that we had set up,” says Black, hostile. “Where else?” 

Snape raises his eyebrows. 

“How silly of me to doubt the quality of your tradecraft,” he says. “After I've heard all the details of your impeccable professional conduct.” 

“Enough,” says Moody, sternly. “Both of you. Black, show him the diary.” 

Black, still glaring, fishes a small wad of paper out of the inner pocket of his leather jacket. 

“Here it is,” he says, smoothing out the pages. “He wrote it in German, of course. We always spoke German to each other.” 

“Are you trying to tell me” says Snape, appalled, “that this is the original?” 

“No,” says Black, curtly, with a nervous glance at Moody. “I copied it out and put his version back where I found it, in case the gorillas in his delegation had managed to beat the location of the dead letter-box out of him.” 

“Read it out,” says Moody, slightly more benevolent. “In English.” 

“Right,” says Black, and he takes a deep breath. Snape wonders how faithful his translation is going to be. “Dear Si– dear Black, I'm writing this in case anything should go wrong before I can speak to Malfoy. You'll laugh, but you know I'm a pessimist by nat– ” 

“Malfoy? What about him?” 

“He's head of London Station now,” explains Tonks, with the slightest hint of distaste in her voice. “The way things have been reorganized, he's effectively in the role that used to belong to Fawkes.” 

“I see,” says Snape, his lip curled. “So, this Lupin was holding out for Malfoy, then? He didn't actually tell Black about the information he supposedly had?” 

“Hence the diary,” snarls Black, an angry pink flush crawling up from beneath his collar. “May I continue?” 

“By all means.” 

“He goes on to talk about a bloke he used to know in the early days of his career,” says Sirius, avoiding a direct translation. “He gives a name, but it's smudged. It starts with a C. Anyway, they were co-workers, and they ended up striking up a close friendship.” 

“This Lupin sounds like a _remarkably_ sociable fellow,” comments Snape, dryly. 

Black actually starts to get to his feet, but Moody raises a hand to stop him. 

“We're not here to protect Lupin's reputation,” he says, abandoning all pretenses of obliviousness. “Nor to slander it,” he adds, turning to Snape. “Keep reading, Black.” 

“This C fellow,” says Black, obviously straining to control himself, “initially told Lupin a load of bullshit about having once worked in a section of Moscow Centre where all the details of all the agents employed abroad were kept. He wanted to impress him, see. Lupin didn't buy it, obviously – why would Centre keep such an archive – but they kept up their friendship. He says... he says it was a very lonely part of his life, and the co-worker was nice.” 

Nobody comments. 

“Anyway, after a while the fellow brought up the subject again. He had lied, he said, because he wanted Lupin to think highly of him. The truth was that he had once worked, he told Lupin, under a man that is known as Gellert.” 

Snape, despite his best efforts, feels himself starting to sweat. Black doesn't seem to notice. 

“Lupin goes on to talk about Gellert, whom he describes as one of the greatest, most effective strategic minds ever employed by Moscow Centre. The man – Lupin's friend – had been chosen by Gellert and sent to England, under the cover of working as a driver for the Russian Embassy in London. For this he had been given the workname Dearborn.” 

“And what was his real job?” asks Snape, his voice less steady than he'd like. 

“He was placed in London to service a mole,” says Black. “A foreign agent, an Englishman working secretly for Centre. Gellert specializes in this sort of thing, apparently – and the people he recruits come from the sort of background that allows them, over the years, to work their ways to the very highest levels of control and influence over British society. Lupin goes into a bit more of detail about this – aristrocrats are particularly susceptible to recruitment, supposedly, on account of the secret shame they feel in regard to their origins – he makes a joke here, but it doesn't really work in English,” he says, and he quickly stuffs the page he's been reading from back into his pocket. 

Snape is too distraught to care. 

“Sounds right to me,” says Tonks, grinning. “Don't you agree, cousin?” 

Black doesn't smile. 

“The real role of the supposed Dearborn,” he started again, “was to work as a secret assistant to a man who is known in England as Karkaroff, Lupin writes. Dearborn couldn't recall his actual name. He posed as a Colonel, and he was with the Embassy as a Cultural Attaché, organizing lectures and conferences – his real job, though, was to brief and debrief the mole Tom. Dearborn and various other legmen did most of the footwork for him, and he might have flattered himself enough to think that he was in charge of the operation, but Gellert, back in Moscow, was the one pulling all the strings.” 

“Did Lupin say who the mole was?” says Snape, his mouth dry. He can feel Moody's eyes on him. 

Black shakes his head. 

“Only that he was a high functionary in the Circus,” he says, flatly. “The writing goes into detail about the methods Centre used to communicate with Tom – extraordinary measures had to be taken to protect his reports, apparently, partly because of the sheer amount of output that he produced over the years. Some of his intelligence was coded, cut up, and handled by a number of couriers, some was sent to Moscow via undeveloped film, some was conveyed in speeches that the mole gave, recorded on special tapes that could only be played back on specialized machines. Lupin... he is a very intelligent person. He realized the monumental implications of this information. He knew what was at stakes.” 

“Provided Dearborn's story is true,” says Tonks, after a brief pause. She's looking at Snape like she's surprised that he wasn't the one making the objection. “It sounds fanciful enough, you have to admit.” 

Black ignores her. 

“There's still one more entry,” he says, staring at his papers. “He writes that he's started to suspect that Dolohov and the rest of the delegation know about he's planning to do. Weird looks at dinner, conversation he's excluded from, his room being rummaged through while he was out, the works. They were trying to make him crack. He sayes that he kept the diary in the lining of his jacket – it was a very small booklet,” he explains, like it were in any way relevant to the story. “He kept it on his person at all times. He also says that he's sure I'd understand now why he'd insisted his information was for Malfoy's ears only. Right – that's all,” he says, pocketing the rest of the papers with hands that look sweaty and shaky. Snape knows that Black is lying – the page he had just started reading from was covered to the bottom in his hurried scrawl. 

He finds that he can't bring himself to call him out on his omission. 

“So, what do you think?” says Moody, bringing Snape out of his reverie. “Does the story check out?” 

“Can I have a glass of water?” says Snape, in a rather feeble attempt at a stall. Tonks, wordlessly, hands him one. Snape thanks her with a nod. Black is still looking rather unwell. Moody is staring. Snape swallows a sip of water and forces himself to begin his questioning of Black. 

“So, you said this happened in June, right?” 

“Right,” says Black, his pale eyes trained on Snape's face. “The first couple of weeks.” 

“And what have you been doing in the meanwhile, pray tell? It's almost August.” 

“He laid low,” says Tonks, “Cut all ties with the Circus, didn't you, Sirius? Just vanished completely. He's posted as a defector,” she explains to Snape. “Well, presumed, but none of the higher-ups has been rendering their garments over his fate, whatever it might have been. Not in my presence, at least.” 

Black gives her a hard look and doesn't speak. 

“How did you come back to England, Black?” says Snape. “Not as Schwarz, I assume.” 

“I got rid of Schwarz as soon as I was done copying down the diary,” says Black, addressing a point a couple of feet to the left of Snape's shoulder. “I went back to my flat, and found it had been trashed completely. I'm talking wallpaper ripped from the walls, everything. I figured it wasn't safe to use my Dutch escape passport, either, so I had someone run this up for me,” he says, and he produces a British passport. “Name of Jones. Not bad, for what it cost me.” 

“His Dutch passport was numbered,” says Moody, guessing Snape's objection. “He felt – not unreasonably – that London having that number could mean that Moscow did as well.” 

“What did you do with the Dutch passport, then?” 

“Burned it,” says Black, much too quickly. “I let the dust settle for a while, and then I made my way back home.” 

“Did you fly in?” 

Black shakes his head. 

“I wish I had,” he says, bitterly. “It took me days. At first I went by train, all the way through France, to Roscoff. From there I took a ferry to Dublin, and then another one, to Holyhead, and then finally I set off for London.” 

“And he came straight to me,” says Tonks, giving her wretched cousin a warm look that makes Snape feel sick to his stomach. “He knew I would listen to what he had to say.” 

“He must not have a great opinion of your professional loyalties,” Snapes says, sweetly. “But I suppose familial affections trump everything, even when dealing with matters of a potentially treasonous nature.” 

“Black knows Tonks and I are not any fonder of the current Circus top brass than he is, Snape,” says Moody, in a tone that leaves no room for objection. “There was no risk of us turning him over to Malfoy without first letting him tell his story.” 

“Very well,” says Snape, crossly. “Moody, can I have a word outside?” 

** 

“I suppose an apology is in order, isn't it?” says Moody, loading his pipe. “I'm afraid I didn't quite trust your motives back when you came to me with a similar suggestion. To put it bluntly, I thought Fawkes had put you up to it, possibly as a ploy to hobble Malfoy as he got too close to the prize.” 

“Understandable,” lies Snape, coldly. “But I can assure you, Fawkes had nothing to do with it.” 

“I realize that now,” says Moody, striking a match. “But you can hardly blame me for being suspicious. After all, you've always been Fawkes' man through and through, eh?” he says, a lopsided grin stretching his mangled features. “Everybody knew that.” 

Snape stays silent. 

“I wonder why he choose Black, of all people,” says Moody, eventually. “Do you think the Russian overestimated his connections? I know his mother is some sort of cousin of the Queen, but still– ” 

“I think the Russian was just dying to tell somebody that story,” says Snape, viciously. “Black just happened to be around. Doesn't sound like either of them is particularly selective in their choice of, ah, friendship, if you catch my meaning.” 

“So it is like that, you reckon?” 

Snape nods. 

“Most definitely. There have been rumours for years, and really, the way he carried on – the way he fussed over the Russian's diary, like a blushing schoolgirl – I'm afraid it's unmistakable.” 

“Well, that explains a lot,” says Moody, puffing on his pipe. “Do you think Potter...?” 

“No,” says Snape, more violently than he had intended to. “Potter has many – _many_ – shortcomings, but that one isn't among them.” 

“Poor sod,” adds Moody, as an afterthought. “That was a whole bloody mess, wasn't it? The Minister – well, his hands were tied when it came to Fawkes, there's no two ways about it. It's not everyday that the Head of one's Service gets caught waging private war against Bulgaria, is it? To keep him in his place would have been madness.” 

Once more, Snape remains silent. 

“Under different circumstances, I truly believe it might have been Malfoy who got the boot.” says Moody, in a placating tone. “But you were...” 

“Fawkes' man, yes,” says Snape, in cold anger. “And Malfoy is the Minister's man, isn't he? Rather convenient.” 

“Malfoy has at least managed not to invade Bulgarian territory, to the best of my knowledge,” says Moody, fixing Snape with a steely look. Snape doesn't reply. 

“Is that source of his still running?” he asks, in a studiously casual manner, after a long pause. “What did they call it? Operation Alchemy?” 

Moody makes a face. 

“Yes,” he admits. “A can of worms, that one. Best source the Circus has had in years, absolute highest levels of confidentiality – I didn't even know _you_ were on that list – and now, for all our precautions, we're left with the very concrete possibility that the mole is in on it.” 

“And you can't change a thing,” Snape says, privately delighted, “or you'll run the risk of tipping him off.” 

“Aye,” says Moody, lighting his pipe again. “And Malfoy and the Minister refuse to get help from the competition.” 

“That's idiotic of them,” says Snape, his mood now restored to levels of cheerfulness he hadn't experienced in years. “That's exactly the security people's job, they'd fix this mess for you in no time.” 

Moody shakes his head. 

“Malfoy will never allow it,” he says. “You know him. You know how he gets.” 

“Well, get the Minister to get rid of Malfoy, then,” says Snape, lightly. “Free up his schedule, allow him to plan that invasion of Bulgaria properly.” 

“Severus,” says Moody, quite seriously, fixing him with his good eye. “You know that I wouldn't ask you if I had any other alternative. You must do this. You know what's at stakes.” 

“How many of them behind the Curtain?” asks Snape, with a sigh. 

“We make provisions for a hundred and fifty agents,” says Moody. scratching what's left of his nose. “I have reasons to believe at least two-thirds of them are active.” 

“Did you remember to strike Potter from your records after the Bulgarian got to him?” says Snape, savagely. “Or was he counted as a casualty in the ranks of Fawkes' Army?” 

“You can start tomorrow, if you wish,” says Moody, ignoring him. “You can have Tonks, for starters, and Hagrid, should you need him. Goodnight.” 

** 

_The previous year, early summer_

The impact of Potter's capture on the fundamental balances of power within the Circus is not immediately evident, at least not at the levels on which Nymphadora Tonks moves. Rumours, in fairness, abound: Malfoy – generally the sneering sort – is allegedly spotted having a full-on shouting match outside his office (sources disagree on the identity of the target of the shouting, but the most common suggestion, as blasphemous as it sounds, is Fawkes himself): it is suggested that it is all part of a ploy to position himself more aggressively, for the benefit of the Minister, in his endless pursue of Fawkes' own job. 

Lily Evans, furious over the Circus' persistent refusal to buy Potter back from the Bulgarian, resigns – but then again, as is common knowledge even among the secretaries, Evans is always resigning. For weeks, nobody on the lower rungs of the Service has reason to feel any real unease – that is, until the day that the previous month's paychecks fail to be delivered. Panic, or at least what passes for panic among a disciplined gaggle of British civil servants, swiftly ensues. 

And then, after several more days of unnerving stillness, a shock of seismic proportions: Fawkes, who has been Head of the Circus longer than Tonks has been alive, is out; Malfoy – his lifetime of scheming finally paying off – is to take his place, effective immediately; and even Evans, her chauvinistic zeal over the fate of dear Jim Potter momentarily set aside, graciously agrees to stay and serve under him. It is insinuated that the real reason why she appeared to be so placated all of a sudden lies in the fact that Malfoy is only ever interested in the glory of his role, which would leave Evans to enjoy vast amounts of unchecked personal power. Trembling little Peter Pettigrew, to the indifference of most people, is confirmed to his role as head of surveillance and communications. Paychecks start being issued again. An internal reshuffle exiles Tonks to the Brixton office. 

And then the dust settles, and it becomes evident that there has been another head following Fawkes' own one into the dust: Severus Snape, the most faithful and the least popular of the old Head's lieutenants, has been forced (how, nobody quite seems to know) into enormously premature retirement. Nobody is promoted or hired to fill the slot he frees. 

By Christmas that year, Fawkes is dead. 

** 

_July_

“Huh?” 

“Are you going to do it?” repeats Fleur, who's taking a hammer to a fresh pair of ballet shoes on their sitting room's floor. “What Moody asked you to do, I mean.” 

“Ah,” says Tonks, her hands working under her beige twin-set to finally unhook her stupid bra. “Well, yeah, I suppose. I don't see who else could.” 

“It'll be dangerous,” says Fleur, carefully evaluating the improved flexibility of her new shoes. “And what if turns out to have been your cousin all along?” 

“Who, Sirius?” 

Fleur clicks her tongue impatiently. 

“Malfoy.” 

Tonks laughs. 

“If only!” she says, letting her skirt fall to the floor. “Not that he's ever been particularly pleasant, mind you, but the way he's been acting lately it's always a shock when one manages to actually fit into an elevator with Malfoy and his giant head. But no, if you're asking seriously, there's no way. He's just plainly not smart enough.” 

“It could be an act,” says Fleur, switching her hammer for a file “A long, long act. Years upon years spent pretending to be completely dim, all for the benefit of Mother Russia. The performance of a lifetime. I say, the bloke deserves an Oscar.” 

“You're impossible,” says Tonks, affectionately, bending down to kiss the top of Fleur's head. “A torment, truly.” 

“Watch your mouth, woman,” says Fleur, in mock sternness. “I could, ah, scratch you badly with this, if I wanted to.” 

“You wouldn't dare,” says Tonks, and she kisses Fleur's beautiful temple. “You fancy me too much.” 

“Don't try your luck,” says Fleur, angling her head to let Tonks kiss her more easily. “You have no idea what it takes to make it when you're a ballerina. We end up having to get _vicious_.” 

“I don't doubt that,” murmurs Tonks, her nose buried into the silky curtain of Fleur's hair. “I'd rather enjoy it if you could consider deposing your arms for the evening and joining me in the bedroom, though.” 

** 

“Lockhart? Hello, it's me,” says Tonks, crossing her stocking-covered legs under her desk. She's not much of an actress, but she finds that it helps – when the occasion really does call for a measure of charm – to try and pretend to be some sort of glamourous creature, _à la_ Fleur. Men sometimes seem to forget the difference, especially when it's on the phone. “ _Dora_.” 

“Dora!” says Lockhart, sounding delighted, if slighty perplexed. “Of course! How are things in Brixton?” 

“Splendid,” says Tonks, looking around her dingy office. “Listen, Gilderoy...” 

“I'm all ears,” promises Lockhart, in a saccharine tone that earns him a silent eyeroll. “Tell me what you need.” 

“See, I was wondering if you could _possibly_ help me with the financing of a small operation I'm putting together – it's a Swedish diplomat, I'm quite sure he's amenable, but of course it'd be much better if you could spare an hour this afternoon and help me plot this out properly. ” 

A cough. 

“I'm not–” says Lockhart, much less jaunty all of a sudden. “I'm not sure, Dora. Here in my office, do you mean? Did you clear this out with Evans?” 

“The papers are on their way,” assures Tonks, basically purring. “It would be a _great_ help, Gilderoy, really, with a brain like yours. You'd be my saviour.” 

“Well... all right, then, I suppose I'll see you at three,” says Lockhart, flattered. Tonks grimaces. 

“Brilliant,” she says, wrapping the cord around her fingers. “I'll see you later, then.” 

“Yes,” says Lockhart, and she gladly hangs up on him, and she goes back to sitting normally. 

** 

“I can barely recognize the place,” says Tonks, fiddling with the stamped pink chit she's been given in the lobby (14.57, A. Filch, janitor). “They've really tightened things up, haven't they?” 

“Quite!” says Lockhart, nodding furiously to signify his enthusiasm for the new and improved security measures. A surly janitor, standing guard by the elevator door, gives him a look of deep contempt. “And look,” he says, extending his arm out as if in personal triumph, “we even got a new coffee machine.” 

“Do watch where you're going, Gilderoy, please,” says Lily Evans, annoyed, clutching an imperiled mug to her chest. Tonks, who hasn't seen her in months, is surprised by the fact that she'd personally walk down the lenght of the corridor instead of having one of her minions fetch her hot beverage for her. Lockhart mumbles an apology and tries not too subtly to urge Tonks along. It's too late. 

“You!” says Evans, pointing at Tonks, and then suddenly she's grinning. “What brings you here, wayward child? Tired of your exile?” 

“She's here to get my opinion on the details of an operation,” says Lockhart, misreading the tone of Evans' question, and he begins a lenghty explanation of Tonks' Swedish connection. Tonks smiles unconfortably next to him. Evans lifts her hand to cut Lockhart short. 

“Make sure that the papers are routed to me, Gilderoy,” she says, her brow now furrowed slightly, her bright eyes fixed keenly on Tonks. “Well, I must be off. Nice seeing you, Dora.” 

“What a woman,” says Lockhart, fondly, once they have put a respectable distance between them and Evans. Tonks wonders idly about the level of bluntness that would be needed for him to realize just how little Evans thinks of him. “Truly brilliant, isn't she? Her best trait – and I mean sincerely, lots of people would think that it's a sign of weakness – is that she's not afraid to ask for help when she knows she's in over her head. Just the other week...” 

“Right,” interrumpts Tonks, through gritted teeth. “Is that still your office?” 

“Oh, no, no,” says Lockhart, preening. “I have one of the corner offices now. That one belongs to Pettigrew – oh, the door is open. Hullo, Peter.” 

Tonks peers into the office. Pettigrew – as small and colourless as ever – is standing next to the vast expanse of Horace Slughorn's tweed-encased torso. Both men turn quickly to face the doorway. They had, it appears, been reading from the same document. Pettigrew sniffles. 

“Hello, Lockhart,” says Slughorn, giovially, after a beat of silence. “And look who's with you! Nymphadora, what brings you here?” 

“Business,” says Tonks, pleasantly. Pettigrew, she notices, looks even more like a rabbit caught in the headlights than he usually does. “Did I startle you?” 

Slughorns laughs. 

“Of course not, my dear girl,” he says, blotting his forehead with an enormous handkerchief. “Only, we're used to having the whole floor to ourselves – aren't we, Peter?” 

“Uh? Oh, yes, quite,” says Pettigrew, attempting a smile. “Quite.” 

“Well, we'll leave you to it,” says Lockhart, grandly. “We have a lot of work to do ourselves, don't we, Dora?” 

“Yes,” she agrees, weakly, and as they make their way to Lockhart's office (Tonks' mind already on the part of the plan she'll need to put into motion next) she could swear that she feels Evans' bright green gaze on the back of her head. 

** 

The house, once grand, has acquired an air of irremediable disrepair. Snape makes his way through an overgrown front garden, sad and wilting under the cruel summer sun. _Trelawney_ , announces the doorbell. Snape, already half-regretting his initiative, rings once. 

“We don't need anything,” comes a woman's voice from inside the house. Snape spots Sybill's endless shawls through the multi-coloured glass panels that adorn the front door. “Go away!” 

“It's me, Sybill,” he says, in a quiet voice. On the other side of the door, Sybill's cats yowl loudly. 

“I'm not expecting anybody,” mutters Sybill, testily. Snape can almost picture the bottle of sherry she's drinking from, and the little patches of colour high on her prominent cheekbones. “Go to hell.” 

“Sybill, it's Severus. Please open the door.” 

** 

“It's my ears,” explains Sybill, unconvincingly, as she presents Snape with a cup and saucer of dubious cleanliness. “I should get them checked out, really. Milk?” 

“No, thank you,” says Snape, before discreetly evaluating the contents of sugar bowl and finding them to be disconcerting. “I prefer taking it like this, actually.” 

“Me too,” confides Sybill, leaning conspiratorially across the table as she pushes her spectacles up her bony nose. “No milk, no sugar, none of that nonsense. Only, sometimes I find a tiny glug of sherry is _exactly_ what a good cup of tea needs.” 

“Brilliant idea,” agrees Snape, after it becomes evident that she's waiting for his persmission. “Go ahead. Now, Sybill...” 

“Yes?” she says, her enormous eyes – glittery in the last rays of the setting sun – giving her such an insect-like appearance that Snape wouldn't be surprised to see diaphanous wings unfold from under her bundle of scarves. “Tell me, Sev.” 

“Karkaroff,” he says, holding her gaze. “Igor Igorevich. Sybill, you were right about him.” 

** 

“It was the medals, of course.” 

“Huh?” 

“The medals,” repeats Sybill, quite agitated, the contents of her cup oscillating dangerously. “They never believed me, Peter never did, the fool, but those medals – that was proof, right there.” 

“Refresh my memory, will you?” 

“Of course,” says Sybill, her nostrils still flared. “Of course. Igor Igorevich – why, he was my favourite. Lovely voice, too, deep, like yours. Listening to his tapes was always a right treat. Cultural Attaché, supposedly, no military ties, no intelligence connections. Pure as the driven snow, was Igor Igorevich. Seven years I waited for him to step out of line, seven years and not a single mistake on his part – I was almost starting to believe that I had been imaging things, Sev, I swear I was – and then it happened.” 

“What happened, Sybill?” inquires Snape, pouring another measure of sherry into her half-empty cup. “What did Karkaroff do?” 

“He wore his medals to the wreath-laying ceremony on Remembrance Day,” says Sybill, delighted by the memory. “Arabella Figg spotted him, and she took photographs of him from across the street, and then I finally had my _proof_.” 

Snape waits in silence. 

“It all went to nothing, of course,” she mumbles eventually, her air of triumph washing away from her gaunt face. “I went to Peter, and he said that it was all up to Malfoy now, wasn't it? And Malfoy was _horrible_ to me, Sev, he was – said that the Russian Army was a biggish affair, and that not everybody who'd fought in it was necessarily Gellert's agent, and that maybe the job was starting to get to me, if I was making such _specious_ connections – oh, Sev, I could have _killed_ him, the brute. Three weeks later, I was out.” 

She's crying now. Snape pours the rest of the sherry into her cup, filling it. 

“Did Karkaroff work alone?” he asks, in a soothing voice, extending his arm across the table to cover her blotchy hand with his. “Or did he have a legman, Sybill?” 

Sybill looks up, as if mildly surprised to find Snape still sitting in her kitchen. 

“There was a Dearborn,” she says, dreamily. “Fit bloke, blond, youngish. Supposedly a driver with the Embassy, but if you ask me...” 

And here she trails off, her eyes quite droopy behind her spectacles. Snape sighs. She's fallen asleep. 

** 

“All right, boys, form a line,” says Mr Potter, bracingly, positioning himself before the goal. “Let's see who gets the best score out of five tries. Longbottom,” he adds, with touching caramaderie, “do you want to go first?” 

“Yes, sir,” says Neville, who's torn between the desire of never again in his life having to interact with a football and the profound unwillingness to let Mr Potter down in any way. “Do I just...?” 

“Yeah, Neville. Pretend it's a penalty kick, and I promise I'll do my best not to let you score,” says Mr Potter, grinning. His weak leg must pain him – Neville has seen the way he grimaces when he thinks nobody sees him, especially with the sort of weather they've been having lately – but he refuses to allow that to stand in the way of soccer practice, and for that Neville greatly admires him, and makes a point to push himself to the best of his very modest atlethic abilities. 

“Goodness, Longbottom,” says Flint, in a booming voice. “Move your arse. It's not like you're going to get any better if you keep us all waiting.” 

Neville, amidst the laughter from the other boys, feels himself blush scarlett. He looks up at Mr Potter, hoping for a defense that he'd rather die than ask for, and discovers – to his dismay – that Mr Potter is staring past them at the hills that surround the school's grounds, and not paying Neville nor his taunters any attention at all. Neville turns his head, hoping to find the source of Mr Potter's sudden distraction, but he doesn't spot anything unusual. 

“Mr Potter,” he calls, feebly. “Jim?” 

The sound of the nickname that Neville has never before dared to use appears to shake Mr Potter out of his reverie. 

“Yes, Neville?” he asks, gently. 

“Is... is something wrong?” 

“No, Neville, don't worry,” says Mr Potter, not quite convincingly. “Only – boys, you too, listen – if you spot some weird character hanging around, come tell me straight away, all right? You promise?” 

“Yes, Jim,” answer the other boys, almost in unison. They're so eager to get back to their practice, Neville thinks, that none of them has noticed the crease that has formed between Mr Potter's keen eyes, or the uneasiness that all of a sudden clouds his usually jovial face. 

None of them, he realizes with a shudder, seems to understand that they might _all_ in danger. 

** 

_July_

Sirius, feeling silly and lonely and sad, clutches his copy of Remus' words to his chest. _I should have taken the diary,_ he thinks, bitterly, lying fully dressed in the darkness of Moody's sister-in-law's guest bedroom. _And to hell with the Russians._

_Oh, don't be so bloody_ sentimental,” he imagines Remus saying. _It's just a letter. I'll write you all the letters you want! You will beg me to stop._

“Never,” he promises, in a whisper. “I'd never want you to stop.” 

If he closes his eyes, he finds, he can focus on many of the details that make Remus so dear to him: the dry scent of his skin, for example, or the way his face scrunches up when he laughs, or the stubborness with which his hair refuses any taming attempt, or the lovely timbre of his voice, or... 

“I miss you,” he whispers again, his heart heavy with longing and fear. “I miss you, dammit.” 

** 

Snape, holed up in his parents' old place through the beginning of August, seldom gets to sleep more than a couple of hours per night. It doesn't take long for the job to start taking its toll on him. 

“Who knows,” he says, nastily, to a visiting Tonks. “Maybe someday you'll manage to take a picture that's properly in focus, and then I won't have to spend an hour trying to decipher a twenty lines memo.” 

“Cut it out,” says Moody, curtly. His newfound diplomatic skills have fizzed out about five hours into their ordeal, which suits Snape perfectly. They almost never talk, and they only stop to sleep, use the bathroom or dig into the few appalling sandwiches that Tonks brings them along with the evening's wad of confidential documents. 

“Arthur says that it's imperative you're done with these by tomorrow morning, sir,” she says to Moody, giving Snape no more attention than she'd reserve to a housefly. “Shall I drop by at six?” 

“Later, if you can,” mumbles Moody, his mangled nose inches from the dossier he's reading. “And bring some more sandwiches, please.” 

** 

The bulk of the material they're exhamining, Snape finds, deals with the sparkle that ignited the final battle in the long, torturous war between Fawkes and Malfoy: Operation Alchemy. 

“Fawkes called me into his office when Malfoy first produced a report from his source Flamel,” he tells Moody, in a rare surge of loquacity. “You should have seen his face. I've never seen anyone look smugger – at first I thought Fawkes was going to hit him. I would have helped.” 

Moody gives a short, gravelly laugh. 

“Few people wouldn't have,” he says, loading his pipe with a pinch of tobacco. “Very few people, believe me.” 

Snape nods. He despises Malfoy almost as much as he despises Black: both are arrogant mediocrities, prone to lashing out at whoever has the misfortune of standing between them and what they consider their natural right to wealth and power – in Malfoy's case, chiefly, Fawkes. 

“Remind me, what was the report about?” asks Moody, puffing at his pipe. “Something about the Black Sea?” 

“Yes,” says Snape. “The draft of a report from the Admiral himself, if you can believe it – Fawkes couldn't, that's for sure.”


	4. Chapter 4

_The previous year, March_

It's an unseasonably warm and sunny day, but Fawkes – who in retrospective must already be in the advanced stages of the illness that will claim his life – keeps his office as dark and overheated as the building's old fixtures will allow. Snape starts sweating seconds after closing the door behind himself. 

“I called you here, Severus,” begins Fawkes, in a conversational tone that scares Snape deeply, “because I wanted to see what you'd make of dear Lucius' newest _scheme_.” 

“Hello, Snape,” says Malfoy, emerging from the shadows at the corner of the room. Snape gives him a nod. Malfoy, he notices, is positively bursting with self-satisfaction. “Long time no see.” 

Were it not for his Westminster connections, Snape knows, Fawkes would have never allowed Malfoy to leave his South American posting and return to London and to his endless pursue of the top job. And yet here Malfoy is, in his Savile Row suit, taunting the old man with his mere presence. 

“Indeed,” says Snape. “How's Narcissa?” 

“Pregnant,” says Malfoy, his lip curling slightly in distaste. “Which meant her cousin - the Minister - wouldn't dream of letting her live among the savages any longer, of course, so here we are.” 

“And isn't that splendid, Severus?” says Fawkes, his bright blue eyes sparkling with rage. “Isn't that perfectly brilliant, to have Lucius back among us? And with such grand ideas, too!” 

Snape looks at Malfoy, who's so pleased with himself that he looks a few inches taller. 

“Operation Alchemy,” he explains, with royal benevolence. “Our source – Source Flamel – is possibly the best placed asset we've managed to recruit in the Soviet camp in the history of the Service. The quality of his output is fantastic. Let me show you.” 

“Fantastic is right,” agrees Fawkes, violently buffing his spectacles with the end of his tie. “Fantastic is _exactly_ right.” 

“Source Flamel,” continues Malfoy, undeterred, “is deeply embedded within the Soviet chain of command. The information he provides is invaluable.” 

“Which, of course,” interjects Fawkes, mellifluous, “means that dear Lucius couldn't _possibly_ be asked to share his identity with us mere mortals.This is for the Minister's eyes only, Severus, you understand.” 

“Indeed,” says Lucius, his pale gaze cold as silver. “Here, Snape, let me show you.” 

** 

“Fawkes had many defects,” says Moody, plainly. “But he wasn't stupid. If he didn't trust Malfoy's source, he must have had his reasons.” 

Snape shakes his head. 

“Fawkes was paranoid,” he says, looking down at the toast he's buttering “By then, he could feel it all slipping away – his life, his grasp on the Circus, the power he'd held for so many years. And he hated Malfoy, he'd always had, there's no questioning that. But this was different.” 

** 

Fawkes, in a sharp increase of a trend he's been following for years, stops talking to everyone who isn't Snape or his secretaries, the latter of which spend their days fielding his calls, turning away an increasingly meager number of hopeful visitors, and bringing him his tea and the heaps of dossiers he demands – many of which, incidentally, are the very same ones Snape and Moody will be poring over the following summer. Snape, tasked with the monumental chore of running the Circus without appearing to do so, is nevertheless relieved by the tomb-like quietness that exhudes from within Fawkes' office and that he vastly prefers to the angry outbursts that punctuated the first few weeks after Malfoy's return. 

“He's losing it,” says Evans, recently back from a three-weeks' _sojourn_ abroad, leaning against Snape's desk. Her magnificent hair is tied back in a careless bun. “Severus, there's no denying it.” 

Snape, torn between conflicting loyaltes, remains silent. Evans is right, of course, in a broader sense, but... 

“And, if I'm not completely mistaken,” continues Evans, wrinkling her slightly sunburnt nose, “he's also not going to see another birthday. Am I wrong? You'd know.” 

** 

A dedicated Alchemy committee is formed, with the Minister as chairman, Malfoy as vice-chairman and Fawkes and Snape as removed as humanly possible from the whole affair. Snape spends much of his time abroad, on nebolous assignments that Fawkes saddles him with – possibly to keep him out of his hair, Snape begins to think, Lily Evan's skeptical voice fanning the flames of his suspicion. The read dossiers pile higher each evening outside Fawkes' door. 

** 

“It had to be one of four people,” Snape tells Malfoy, counting the names off on his fingers. “Malfoy, Pettigrew, Slughorn or Evans. Nobody else had access. Well, except Fawkes and me. Fawkes told me to start with Pettigrew, because Pettrigrew owed me the most – but I couldn't get anything out Pettigrew.” 

“That's a first,” says Moody. “Spineless little runt that he is.” 

“Exactly. The only explanation for Pettigrew not cracking under pressure is that he must have felt that his back was covered. Fawkes agreed, and sent me to court Slughorn. Slughorn didn't even bother to lie: his loyalties where with whomever could keep him warm, he told me, and it didn't look to him like Fawkes was that person. They gave him a medal, the bastard, didn't they? I read it in one of those Ministry memos. Same day they finally gave Malfoy his bloody knighthood.” 

“So that left you with Evans,” says Moody, ignoring Snape's outburst. 

“So that left me with Evans,” agrees Snape, suddendly deflated. 

** 

_The previous year, May_

Evans, beautiful ruthless Evans, who's never given a straight answer in her life and whom Snape loves desperately. They meet at her house, after dinner, as they sometimes still do. She's wearing slacks and a deep green blouse against which her hair stands out like a blaze of fire in a forest. Snape accepts the cocktail that she hands him, but takes only the merest of polite sips. 

“This is about all that Alchemy nonsense, isn't it?” she asks, without preamble. 

“Yes,” admits Snape, mildly. “Well, Lily, you do write the reports...” 

Lily shrughs. 

“That's all Slughorn, I think.” 

Snape doesn't say anything, but he holds her gaze. After a beat, Lily laughs. 

“Oh, all right, you've done your homework. Bloody Fawkes – you know he wouldn't have put you to this if not for the fact that it's Malfoy's source,” she says, dangling her legs over the side of her armchair. “He's having you follow us around like a dog, Severus. Don't you have any self-respect?” 

“There's something not quite right about it, you have to admit it.” 

“The only thing that's not quite right about Alchemy is that it has Malfoy's smirk attached to it,” says Lily, savagely. “You bloody well know that Fawkes would be gaga over Flamel if you or I had gift-wrapped the whole thing for him. Speaking of gaga, do you know what he does all day, holed up in that hermit cave of his? I'll tell you. He goes through personnel files, Severus. Many of them about blokes who died when Churchill was still Prime Minister. Are you angling for his job, Severus? Fawkes', I mean, not Churchill's.” 

Snape is genuinely taken aback by the question. 

“I... I really am not,” he says, truthfully. 

“You should,” says Lily, blunt. “Do we have anything else to discuss? I have to go pick a friend from the airport.” 

_Is it Potter?_ Snape wonders, Fawkes suddenly the furthest thing from his mind. _It could be anyone. It could be a girlfriend of hers, from school. It doesn't_ need _to be Potter._

But in his heart, from the look on her face, he knows that it is him. 

** 

“Fawkes was livid,” Snape tells Moody. “Accused me of getting lost in the maze of Lily Evans' skirts. Unpleasant situation, really.” 

Moody, his pipe now comfortably lit, opts for a diplomatic silence. 

“The next day,” continues Snape, “he disappeared. Did you even notice, down on the third floor? He told everyone he was off to France – but I crosschecked, and the only place he could have flown to was Berlin. Evans made a joke of it, said that Fawkes had gone to Paris to perfect his Napoleon impression. He was only gone three days, but they way things were going by then, we were all quite surprised Malfoy didn't go ahead and have Fawkes' office redecorated.” 

“I remember that. When Fawkes got back he and Malfoy got into a fight in the corridor, didn't they?” 

“They did. It was just before Operation Stupefy was launched.” 

** 

“Bloody hell,” says Fleur, frowning at Tonks from across the breakfast table. “Why does it always have to be you?” 

“Because I'm really good at stealing stuff, I suppose,” says Tonks, with a grin. “No, I'm joking. I'm terrible, actually. It's just that I'm the only one who won't look out of place – Moody hasn't set foot in a reading room in fifteen years, he'd draw a crowd.” 

Fleur sighs unhappily. 

“Do we even like England that much? I'm sure my father's brothers in France could put us up if you decided to say screw it to the Circus.” 

Tonks laughs. 

“We both know you wouldn't last two weeks without access to proper tea, love.” 

“Maybe so,” concedes Fleur, serious. “But I'd rather do that than have you sent to the firing squad for treason.” 

“I really don't think that's still a thing.” 

“All these people – your cousin, Moody, that ghastly Snape – don't think twice about sending you out there to risk your career, at best. And for what? A desperate man's inventions.” 

Tonks blinks, surprised by the sudden bitterness in Fleur's tone. 

“There's proof.” 

“Is there really, Dora? Or do you just need Moody to be right?” 

“I don't... look, they're cracking it, alright? Snape thinks that he's found the house.” 

“The house? What house?” 

“The house where the mole... oh, love, I will have to explain properly, it won't make any sense otherwise. I have to run now – it's my only chance to nick the Stupefy dossier. Can we talk after I get back?” 

“All right,” says Fleur, glumly. “But mind you _do_ get back.” 

** 

“Yes?” 

“Lucius says he wants to talk to you before you go, Dora,” says Pettigrew, his plump hand placed firmly on Tonks' arm. “Come upstairs, the meeting is about to start.” 

“Right,” says Tonks, in a panic, her knuckles white around the handle of her purse. _Fuck. I had_ almost _made it out._ “After you.” 

“Wait, you need to leave that thing with Pringle again,” says Pettigrew, and Tonks can't decide if she's imagining the hint of suspicion that colours his slightly condescending reminder. “You know the rules.” 

“Oh, nonsense,” says Lily Evans, passing them on her way back from some mysterious mid-morning errand. “Let a girl have her bloody purse, Peter, honestly. What's she going to do, nick one of Lucius' sculptures? That would do wonders for the morale around the office, frankly.” 

Tonks – the stolen Stupefy dossier stuffed uncerimoniously into her purse – forces herself to laugh. 

** 

“Ah, Nymphadora,” says Lucius, smiling coldly from his overly elaborate chair. “Glad that you could join us. Close the door. Take a seat.” 

Tonks surveys the other faces around the meeting table – ranging from uneasy (Pettigrew) to distracted (Slughorn) to profoundly bored (Evans) – and takes a seat directly across from Lily. 

“So,” says Lucius, after a calculated pause. “Any news of your esteemed cousin? Have you seen him recently?” 

Tonks feels her blood run cold. 

“Who, Sirius?” she says, trying her best to sound flippant. “Why, of course. He drops by for Sunday roast at my mum's every week.” 

A snort of laughter – Lily Evans, naturally. 

“Very funny,” says Malfoy, looking at Tonks like he's about to have a servant slap her. “Brixton is a balm for your sense of humour, I see.” 

“Goodness, Lucius,” says Tonks. “Don't tell me that it's a serious question. Wasn't the latest consensus that he's holed up comfortably somewhere in Moscow?” 

“He's been spotted,” says Malfoy, his eyes two icy slits. “Here in London. I don't suppose he has many friends left in England, now, does he?” 

_He's bluffing,_ thinks Tonks, automatically. _They can't_ possibly _have spotted him in London, he wouldn't be so_ bloody _stupid..._

“I have no idea,” she says, cold sweat pooling at the small of her back. “Maybe he came back to see his mum, who knows. Thats sounds just as likely as idea that he would take the trouble to defect and then come straight back in England. Come to think of it, maybe he's here to see Narcissa.” 

Another chuckle from Evans. 

“Don't you...” says Malfoy, livid. Pettigrew's watery eyes dart nervously between him and Tonks. “Don't you dare drag Narcissa into this.” 

“She's his cousin too, isn't she? Yet I don't see her being held responsible just because someone somewhere thought he saw some bloke in a leather jacket. I wonder why that is.” 

“Get _out_ of my office, you insolent little...” says Malfoy, trembling with anger. “Get out. _Now._ ” 

“With pleasure,” says Tonks, her precious purse in hand, getting to her feet. “Peter, Horace, Lily – see you around.” 

** 

“You bloody _cretin_!” shouts Tonks, as soon as Sirius opens the door to his room. “You absolute idiot – what did you go to London for?” 

“I didn't,” says Sirius, unconvincingly. Tonks feels the urge to slap him across the face. 

“Bullshit,” she says, jabbing a finger into his chest. “They saw you. Malfoy knows. The other three know. Congratulations! You've blown the whole thing.” 

Sirius stands in silence, his hands held up awkwardly against her assault. He looks terrible, tired and underfed. His hair has been cut short, which doesn't suit him. He seems miserable. Tonks feels a spark of pity, quickly drowned by a new wave of righteous anger. 

“I'm risking everything for you, you stupid fuck,” she shouts, scaring poor Mrs Moody away from the stairs she had begun climbing. “My career, my reputation, possibly even my own fucking _life_ \-- and all the while you've been _lying_ to me.” 

“I haven't lied to you,” says Sirius, without looking Tonks in the eye. “You never asked.” 

“Of fucking course I never asked,” she says, incensed. “I had no idea you were so fucking _stupid_. Fuck. I can't even look at you.” 

“Dora, listen...” 

“Shut up. How did you even leave the house? Is Mrs Moody in on this? Did you bribe her?” 

“What? Of course she isn't, no. I climbed out of the window.” 

Tonks, disgusted, goes and exhamines the window. Sirius steps back into the bedroom and closes the door behind himself. 

“Big drop,” comments Tonks, turning to face him. “Tell me, what did you risk your neck for?” 

Sirius lowers his eyes and doesn't say anything. 

“I'll bet my last penny it has something to with that passport you didn't burn in Vienna. Am I wrong?” 

“Listen, Dora...” says Sirius, urgently, his eyes shiny with fervour. “Let me explain. I had no choice.” 

Tonks feels her knees go weak. 

“You had no choice but to do _what_ , Sirius?” 

“I needed to follow him.” 

“Follow... Lupin? Behind the Curtain?” 

Sirius nods. Tonks drops onto his desk chair. 

“You didn't make it, did you?” she says, in a voice that she barely recognizes as her own. “They knew it was you, of course. They had been tipped off.” 

Sirius shakes his poorly shorn head. 

“I never even tried,” he admits, grimacing. “I planned to defect, if necessary. But when it came to it, I couldn't. So I came back here. But now I'm ready to do whatever it takes.” 

“No!” says Tonks, her head spinning. “I won't let you. How can you say something like that?” 

“He was ready to do it for me. I should be ready to do the same for him.” 

“This is madnesss,” says Tonks, incredulous. “Insanity. Sirius, you hardly even know the man.” 

“I don't expect you to understand.” 

“Would you really be ready to trade away Circus secrets? Do you realize what that would mean for all of us?” 

“I wouldn't, obviously. Mostly because I'm not privy to many of those, if you haven't noticed.” 

“And how would you buy your way into Moscow, then?” 

Sirius shrugs. 

“Family connections,” he says, indifferent. “And family secrets, too, those I wouldn't mind trading away. Let my darling old mother get what she deserves, eh?” 

“You disgust me,” says Tonks, but even as she speaks her mind is filled with imagines of Fleur's beautiful, fearless face, and she knows that there isn't anything they wouldn't do to protect each other. “And you're a fool if you think that they will reunite you with your precious Lupin, even if you made it to the other side.” 

_Especially because he's most likely been shot weeks ago,_ she adds, mentally.


	5. Chapter 5

_Early June_

“Do you love your country?” 

Sirius almost chokes on his beer. 

“I'm sorry, what?” 

“I love mine,” says Remus, ignoring him. “Even though I'm sure it's hard to believe, given...” he adds, gesturing unhappily at Sirius' apartament. 

“I mean, it's not like you've bugged the Kremlin for me. We're just trying to ward off loneliness, that's all.” 

“I grew up in an orphanage,” says Remus, absentmindedly rubbing his chest through his shirt. “My father was in Siberia, and my mother died when I was five. Everything in my life, I owe it to my country – all the good parts, all the bad parts. I want you to undertand that this is not something I'm doingly lightly.” 

“Of course,” says Sirius, softly. _An orphanage._ He finds that he would love to put his arms around Remus and hold him. 

“So, do you?” says Remus, earnestly. 

“I suppose I do,” concedes Sirius, even though his feelings towards his motherland are tepid at best. “I always stand up for the national anthem – when they play it before a football game, at least.” 

Remus smiles out of politeness, and Sirius has the distinct impression of having failed a test of some sort, which pains him. 

“All jokes aside,” he says, trying to sound impressive. “I do love Britain. I wouldn't have joined the Circus if I didn't.” 

Remus gives a more genuine grin. 

“So it wasn't for dear Jim Potter, uh?” 

“Well, he did introduce me to the whole concept, so, in a way... oh, wait, _no_ , you've gotten it completely wrong. It was never like that between me and Jim.” 

“You can tell me,” says Remus, with a shrug. “I'm not, ah, the jealous type. We're both adults.” 

“Jim likes women and women only,” says Sirius, and what he doesn't add is that Jim Potter likes Lily Evans and Lily Evans only. “It wasn't him who got me expelled from Eton, in case you were wondering.” 

“I was, actually,” says Remus, very seriously. “I'm _very_ interested in the sort of things that'll get a rich boy thrown out from a fancy school. Tell me everything.” 

Sirius snorts. 

“It wasn't _what_ I did, exactly, it was more a question of who the other bloke was,” he explains, amused. “Only son of an elderly duke. His family felt that it was, er, crucial for him to develop a robust appetite for the fairer sex, and apparently all the cocksucking we were getting up to was counterproductive, so I had to go. I wonder what happened to him.” 

“Let's see, realistically he went mad with frustration within two weeks of your expulsion. I know I would have. Poor sod, what an injustice.” 

“You aren't supposed to be _sympathizing_ with him!” 

“But of course I am! I know how it is. Ever since I met you, I haven't been able to get you out of my mind. It’s starting to affect my work.” 

“Does it really?” 

“Oh, yeah,” says Remus, grinning wickedly. “I could be, say, discussing machine embroidering techniques with the owner of a factory, and all of a sudden visions of your glorious backside float into my mind and I’m done for the day.” 

“Why,” says Sirius, delighted with the way the conversation is going. “You’ve never told me that you liked it!” 

“I have eyes, Black, and they’re perfectly functional,” says Remus, placing his hand on Sirius' upper thigh. “And I have hands, too, also perfectly fuctional.” 

“And you’ve also got a cock,” says Sirius. “And I think we both know how it could be described.” 

Remus snorts. 

“Functional? Well, thank you, I suppose. That’s high praise.” 

“Oh, shut up,” says Sirius, also chuckling. “It was smoother in my head. What I was getting at is that you should really,  _really_  fuck me.” 

“Fuck you?” repeats Remus, his tone unreadable. “Tell me, did the duke's only son get to do that?” 

“He did not,” says Sirius, in a sudden bout of earnestness. “And if he had, it wouldn't matter anyway. Meeting you has erased anything I ever did with anybody else from my record. Everything we do together is new.” 

“Very well,” says Remus, pleased. “We have lots of ground to cover, then.” 

** 

_August_

The Minister – thinks Snape, eyeing the conspicuously shiny black car with irritation as it approaches his parents' house – could have spared himself a lot of effort by simply placing an announcement in the Times about his whereabouts for the afternoon. 

“No wonder he and Malfoy get along so well,” he tells Moody, who grunts in agreement. 

“Let's hope he's feeling reasonable, at least” adds Snape, mentally rehearsing his pitch. 

** 

“I did find something on Jim Potter,” announces Arthur Weasley, biting into a watercress sandwich after the Minister's departure. “Old files, from when he was at Oxford. Completely cleared, obviously, but there were more than a few whispers about him. Also – and I had no idea about any of this, I never notice anything, Molly says that it's a miracle she managed to get me to ask her out – he and Lily Evans went out together for a while. Can you imagine that?” 

Snape says nothing. Moody raises one of his bushy eyebrows slightly. Arthur takes another bite. 

“Anyway, here's the files. Please send them back as soon as you can.” 

** 

“Mr Weasley,” says Snape, as the secretary closes the door behind him. “Thank you for seeing me on such short notice.” 

“Snape,” says Bill Weasley, from behind his desk. “What do I own the pleasure to? I assume you're not actually in need of a solicitor.” 

“Not that I know of,” says Snape, taking a seat. “But I'm afraid I have a favour to ask.” 

“Oh,” Weasley says, leaning back in his chair. “In what capacity?” 

“Mine,” says Snape, firmly. “And Moody's. And the Minister's in on it.” 

“I see,” he says, unimpressed. With Fawkes gone, Snape knows, the Circus holds no appeal for him. 

“It's very important,” insists Snape. “You know I wouldn't come to you if it wasn't. It's about the night Jim Potter was shot.” 

Weasley sits up straight. 

“What about it?” he says, brusquely. Snape can tell that he wasn't expecting the question. 

“Can you tell me what went down? You were one of the few people around that night.” 

“You were away, weren't you?” Weasley says, as if struck by a sudden realization. “You were in Rome. Fawkes had sent you.” 

“To keep me away, yes. And Evans was on leave, and pretty much everybody else had been told to stay home, hadn't they? You were the only officer left in charge.” 

“I was,” Weasley says slowly, frowning. “Fakwes had personally asked me. I was supposed to be on leave, truth to be told, but you know how impossible it was to get out of something when he wanted you to do it.” 

Snape nods. 

“He looked terrible,” Weasley continues. “I had been away from the Circus for a couple of months, and he had aged twenty years. I remember thinking that there must have been something the matter with him. And he was really agitated. Swore me to secrecy, even though he hadn't really told me anything at all, and promised he'd fill me in on Monday.” 

“Secrecy, you say?” 

“Absolute secrecry, yes. I was never to utter a word about the whole thing. Nobody could know: not you, not Evans, not Slughorn.” 

“What about Malfoy?” 

“He didn't mention Malfoy once.” 

“Doesn't surprise me,” says Snape. “Go on. What were your instructions?” 

“I was to be Fawkes' eyes and ears, in essence. Whatever might come in during the night, no matter how trivial, I was to immediately alert him – and it had to be done in person. No telephone, no memos, nothing that could be traced back to him. He wanted complete deniability, he said.” 

“And did anything come in?” asks Snape, who knows the answer. 

Weasley stares at him. 

“Not until I had turned in,” he says, in a tone that contains a warning not to abuse his patience. “About a quarter to midnight – I had, ah, a novel I wanted to finish. And then the first call came. And then the phones didn't stop ringing for the next eight hours.” 

“Who called first?” 

“Foreign Office.” 

“Did they have the story straight?” 

“More or less. They had Plovdiv and Sofia mixed-up, and they though that he had died. I didn't really believe it, at first, I thought it sounded far-fetched. And then, as soon as I had put the phone down, one of the radio boys came running and told me it was insanity all of a sudden in the Bulgarian air, and that from what they could decipher it was about a British spy who had been shot. At that point I dropped everything and ran up to Fawkes' office.” 

“What did he say?” says Snape, his stomach contracting painfully. 

Weasley looks away. 

“He was waiting for me, standing by his desk. He didn't say a word. I kept telling him that I needed something to tell the people downstairs, but after I told him what had happened it was like he couldn't hear me or see me any longer. He just stood there, staring at the wall, looking like death. There were files all over his desk, all over the room. It must have been a couple of minutes at most, but it felt like hours. And then all of a sudden he was asking me to get him a cab and to find you immediately.” 

“But you knew I was in Rome,” says Snape, feeling himself start to sweat. 

Weasley nods. 

“That's what I told him, and I could almost swore he had forgotten. I had never seen panic in his eyes before. He told me to get whomever was available, then, and that it made no difference. So I went downstairs to try and get a hold of someone, and meanwhile the whole building was plunging into complete insanity. There were talks of Bulgarian tanks approaching the Greek border, it sounded like we had the start of World War III on our hands. I dragged a line into a closet and set about trying to get our people in Italy to find you.” 

“You didn't try anybody else first? Evans? Malfoy?” 

Weasley shakes his head. 

“I knew Malfoy was in Scotland, so no point trying to get to him. Evans and Slughorn weren't anywhere to be found. I made a signal to Rome and waited for them to find you. Meanwhile, an official bulletin had come out.” 

“What did it say?” 

“A British spy by the name of Jim Dursley, travelling on fake Bulgarian papers and assisted by local seditious forces, had been shot following a failed to kidnap a Bulgarian general in the woods near Plovdiv. I remember thinking that it was strange that the Bulgarian knew Potter's workname and that he was British, if they had shot him. And then you called back.” 

“I did, didn't I?” says Snape, biting the inside of his cheek. “As soon as I heard.” 

“Yes,” says Weasley, fixing him with a steely gaze. “You did. And then Lily Evans turned up, soaking wet and looking like she had ran all the way there. I've never been more relieved to see someone.” 

“Did she already know?” 

“Only that something had happened. She said that Malfoy had called her.” 

“But you hadn't called Malfoy, had you?” 

Weasley frowns. 

“I assumed Fawkes had.” 

“Reasonable assumption,” concedes Snape, repressing the mounting tide of guilt and dread inside him. “What did you do next?” 

“I filled Evans in,” says Weasley, now eyeing Snape more carefully. “She didn't know it was Potter who had been shot, but once I told her... it was like she had turned into a banshee. I thought she was going to scratch my eyes out. I had never seen her like that.” 

“So she didn't know it was Potter when she came in?” 

“I already told you: she only know something had happened.” 

“But Fawkes knew. Surely he would have told Malfoy.” 

“Not over the phone, evidently,” says Weasley, coolly. “Anyway, it didn't matter. She took control of the whole thing, and by the following morning she had managed to patch it up as nicely as she possibly could, which in that particular case meant we didn't have to worry about a war. I don't know what we could have done if it hadn't been for her.” 

“Brilliant woman, that one,” agrees Snape, weakly. “When did Malfoy come in?” 

“Next morning, on a RAF plane he'd commandeered. Grinning like a lunatic, which as you can imagine went over extraordinarily well with Evans. Slughorn arrived about an hour later, smelling like a brewery. He had spent the previous night having dinner at some fancy new restaurant, he said.” 

“Did anyone ever question the fact that you had been working that night even though you weren't supposed to?” 

Weasley shakes his head. 

“Not until I had gotten back from my leave,” he says. “Malfoy called me into his office, and I told him that it was down to the fact that I had just broken up with a girlfriend and needed a place to stay for a few nights. He didn't believe me, but he played nice. It was his recommendation that got me this job.” 

“Very nice of him indeed,” says Snape, his heart heavy in his chest, and he gets up to leave. 

** 

There is a small clutch of people waiting for the footballers after their practice, most of them young boys trying very hard to look nonchalant in front of their barely older idols. Snape checks his watch and wonders idly if they shouldn't be at school, the day being a Tuesday. 

“Viktor,” he says, once Krum finally emerges into the sunshine. “An autograph, if you don't mind?” 

** 

“I don't work there any longer,” says Krum, slumped in the passenger seat of Snape's rental car. “I thought you knew.” 

“I don't work there any longer either,” says Snape. “They sacked me. Last summer.” 

“Ah,” says Krum, and he raises his hands in a wide gesture of commiseration. “Well, I can put in a good word for you with our manager if you want me to.” 

It takes Snape a few seconds to realize that he's joking. 

“Listen, Viktor, it's about Potter. He asked for you, didn't he? On his last job?” 

Krum's dark eyebrows come together in a frown. 

“I don't want to talk about this,” he says. “It's in the past.” 

“Viktor, please.” 

Krum, surly, considers Snape's plea. 

“He did, yes,” he says, eventually. “He wanted me as back-up.” 

“Did he go through Pettigrew?” 

Krums shakes his head. 

“No, no. Pettigrew couldn't know. He came to me directly. He said it was a special job, secret.” 

“What did he want you to do?” 

“He needed me for a weekend. I had a good identity running – Greek, with a driver license. He needed me to be able to drive. Back then a fake identity still worked for me,” adds Krum, with the slightest hint of professional pride. “So I go to Pettigrew and I tell him my grandmother is ill and can I go see her back home, and he says of course, Viktor, and see you next week.” 

“Did you and Jim travel together?” 

Krum seems annoyed by the question. 

“We were meeting up in Plovdiv,” he says, playing with a ring that he wears on his right middle finger. “He was going to arrive by train, I had to rent a van and drive from Sofia. There was going to be a man waiting for us in a nearby village, Jim told me. But then we met up and the plan had changed.” 

“Changed how?” 

“He was going to go alone,” says Krum, his eyebrows an angry black line. “I had to stay behind and wait. If Jim turned up by Monday, I would have to come back and bring Fawkes Jim's message. If Jim didn't, I had to come back and never speak of this to anybody, ever.” 

“Did he tell you why the plan had changed?” 

“No,” says Krum, twisting the ring more violently around his finger. “He worried about me, he said. We fought about it.” 

“What happened next?” says Snape, after a tactful pause. 

“I drove him to the village, no problem,” says Krum, flatly. “Then I came back to Plovdiv. Had dinner. All of a sudden, the whole city starts rumbling. It was lorries, lots of them. Military. The waitress said there had been a shooting in the woods. Counter-revolutionaries. I went back to my room and listened to the radio and waited.” 

“Did you receive any message?” 

“I did not. I burned my Greek passport, made my way down to Turkey, flew back to London. I had decided I wanted to speak to Fawkes, no matter what Jim had said. It wasn't easy. They told me he was ill, in hospital.” 

“He was,” confirms Snape. “Viktor, did anyone know where you had been?” 

“They suspected,” says Krum, twisting his mouth. “But couldn't prove it. They asked about the last time I had seen Jim. They asked to see my Greek passport, the one I burned. I told them it was lost. Told them I hadn't seen Jim in months. Didn't say anything else. After a while they got tired and told me to go to hell, and it was really lucky that they did.” 

“Because of the football thing.” 

“Because of the football thing,” agrees Krum. “Football doesn't get anybody killed.” 

Snape doesn't have anything to say to that. 

“You know what the price was?” says Krum, openly angry all of a sudden. “The price of Jim Potter's liberty? Nine people. Nine friends. Tortured. Dead. The whole network in Sofia, blown. To hell with Jim. To hell with the Circus. To hell with everything.” 

** 

“And you're sure about all of that?” 

“As sure as anyone can be about Mundungus Fletcher's stories,” says Snape, curtly. “Especially the ones that take place in a pub. He was just as plastered then as he was this afternoon, and the Bulgarian soldier he says he talked to barely had any English. But it does fit in with what Krum told me. Potter suspected that the Russians were waiting for him.” 

“And he went anyway,” says Moody, sounding skeptical. “Straight into their waiting arms.” 

“He was acting on Fawkes' orders. ” 

“Are you saying that Fawkes intentionally sent Potter to his death?” 

“No,” says Snape, irritated. “But bloody Potter always has to play the hero, doesn't he?” 

“Aye,” concedes Moody. “So, Fletcher came back from his mission and went to Pettigrew with his Bulgarian scoop, if I'm following you correctly. How did you catch wind of this?” 

“Fletcher wrote me a letter,” says Snape. “Detailing the whole thing. The only thing that saved his sorry arse is that he had the forethought to hand it in to me by hand, and I burned it straight away.” 

“But why did he...?” 

“It was because of something Pettigrew did,” explains Snape. “Something that didn't sit right with Fletcher.” 

“What did he do?” jokes Moody. “Question his expense report?” 

Snape doesn't smile. 

“He changed his tune overnight,” he says. “At first he acted grateful about the scrap of information Fletcher had brought him, but in a matter of hours he was yelling at him about being a drunkard and not spotting such an obvious agent provocateur. Fletcher took offense, and he decided that maybe I was the right person to look into the matter and see what had gotten Pettigrew to change his mind so quickly.” 

“And did you do it?” 

“It was just before they gave me the boot,” says Snape. “I didn't have the time to do anything. Now, I've got all the time in the world. The time and the willingness to pursue it.” 

** 

_June_

It takes Remus a week of nearly nightly visits before he allows Sirius to see what he's hiding under his shirts. 

“Wolves,” he explains, matter-of-factly. “When I was a little boy. My father shot at them and they fled. It was months before I could leave the hospital, and in the meanwhile he was sent to Siberia. I haven't seen him since.” 

“I don't know what to say,” says Sirius, taking in the evidence of a brutal attack on what had been a much smaller chest. “Except that I'm really, really, really glad that you made it.” 

Remus grins, unexpectedly. 

“I'll tell you this in confidence,” he says, sweeping a lock of Sirius' hair away from his brow. “Me too. Especially these last few days.” 

_Early June_

The man is thin, with black hair, a sallow face and a deeply unfriendly general demeanour. Neville dislikes him on sight, but he can't bring himself to actually go to Mr Potter with his suspicions, for fear of being thought of as easy spooked. The thin man keeps within the borders of the village, which Neville has mentally chosen as his line in the sand: if the man were to cross them, he'd find his courage and alert Mr Potter at once. 

It is to Neville's enormous dismay, then, that the first time he happens to spot the thin man outside the village – even worse, on school grounds, _at night_ – he should be engaged in animated conversation (Neville supposes, for he's watching the courtyard scene from a third story window) with none other than Mr Potter himself. 

_Careful_ , he finds himself wanting to scream. _Jim,_ careful! 

But in the end he doesn't do anything, and Mr Potter and the thin stranger walk away side by side. 

** 

Potter is limping badly, notices Snape with a spark of sick satisfaction. He decides that he's going to stand. 

“I don't appreciate you sniffing around here, Snape,” says Potter, lowering himself onto the stone bench at the top of the small hill. “I really, really don't appreciate that.” 

“Not a social call, Potter, rest assured.” 

“Did Fawkes send you?” 

Snape almost laughs. 

“Fawkes is dead,” he says. “God, did they even debrief you once they got you back?” 

“The new Chief, then. Whoever he is. Malfoy?” 

“Malfoy,” confirms Snape. “Not that it matters. They threw me out last summer. I'm here on my own account.” 

“Well, if that's the case, kindly get the hell out of my hair.” 

“Believe me, I wish I could. Speaking of hell, did they ever told you what happened to your Bulgarian networks? Blown, the lot of them. Rumours has it was you who blew them, to buy you freedom.” 

“That's a bloody lie and you know it!” 

Snape shrugs. 

“I don't know anything,” he says, in a tone of indifference. “Why don't you tell me what really happened?” 

“Why should I?” says Potter, aggressive. 

“Because I'm the only one who can unpick this whole mess, and you know it.” 

A pause. Potter takes a couple of glugs from a small flask he's produced from inside his jacket. 

“Blown, you say? All of them?” he asks eventually, in a quiet tone. 

Snape nods stiffly. 

“I'm afraid that's what happened,” he says. “Families were told they were dead.” 

“Christ.” 

Another pause, another glug from the flask. 

“It was all Fawkes' idea,” says Potter, slowly, as if talking to himself. “He sent out for me. Arranged a meeting. Asked me if I had any Bulgarian identity running. I did. Told me to keep my mouth shut and wait for further instructions.” 

“Which were?” 

“He said he had someone on the Bulgarian side ready to make the jump. A general. Very well placed, all sort of sensitive information to offer. Almost too good to be true. But he needed to be courted in person, and it had to be someone who spoke the language, someone Fawkes trusted implicitly.” 

“And that was you,” says Snape, smiling unpleasantly. 

“Yes,” says Potter. “Apparently. Anyway. The third time he sent for me, Fawkes was nearly enough frantic. He had made me a whole annotated timeline of Bachvarov's career, all in his own handwriting, detailing the roles he'd played over the years, both in the military and in the secret services. Bachvarov had spent a good chunk of time in Moscow in the mid-60's, turned out, acting as a liason between his service and Moscow Centre, and it was there that he had acquired the scrap of information Fawkes was really after.” 

“The identity of the mole inside the Circus,” says Snape, softly. 

“Exactly,” says Potter, and for the first time in their long acquaintanceship Snape feels OK with letting him have the last word. 

** 

“Of course, had I knew it was going to be a whole bloody military operation, I wouldn't have bothered trying,” begins Potter, after a pause so long that Snape had begun wondering if he had fallen asleep. “But I figured I could outsmart them, because I knew they were waiting for me.” 

“How?” 

“Survellaince in Sofia. They weren't particularly good at it, I managed to shake them off easily. But what I wasn't expecting was half the bloody Russian army waiting for me in those woods. There was no way I could have made it out of there alive, even with two good legs. The minute they shot me, I was done for.” 

“And yet here you are.” 

“I don't appreciate the insinuation,” says Potter, in anger, mistaking Snape's point completely. “I never said a word about my networks.” 

“Your networks were known long before any of this ever happened – to the mole Tom, and to the Russians. The only reason they were blown when they were is that it was the final nail needed to seal Fawkes' fate. What I need is confirmation – what was the real reason they made sure to get you alive? Tell me, Potter!” 

Potter takes another swig from his flask. 

“They wanted to know the full extent of Fawkes' suspicions,” he says eventually. “They knew he was on the warpath, but they needed details. I had vowed never to tell, but after a while – I could have been a week, it could have been a month, I lost track of time completely – they managed to beat the whole story out of me. There was one of them in particular – he never laid a finger on me, he was an old man, frail – but he had eyes like an hawk, and he was always in the background, watching. Waiting for the others to break me completely. In the end I told him everything I knew.” 

_Gellert_ , Snape thinks. _That must have been him_

“Tell me what you told him.” 

Potter grimaces. 

“Fawkes had managed to boil it down to five people – Malfoy, Slughorn, Evans, Pettigrew, you. We agreed on a code – Malfoy was Peacock, Slughorn was Snail, Evans was Doe, Pettigrew was Rat, and you were Serpent. My job was to meet Bachvarov, find out who the mole was, and get the message back to Fawkes, even if it meant dragging myself all the way to Sofia and scrawling the word on the door of the Embassy in my own blood.” 

“What happened when you got back? Who debriefed you?” 

“They sent Peter,” says Potter. “Slimy little Peter, always stuck with the unpleasant jobs. But I wouldn't call it a debrief. He gave me cash, pointed me towards a school who could use a football coach and told me not to worry about this Stupefy nonsense anymore, by which he meant keep my mouth shut or else. I had no choice, so I did as told.” 

“Why didn't Evans come?” 

“How should I bloody know?” says Potter, and Snape knows that he has touched a nerve. 

“You two were always so close,” he says, feigning innocence, as his heart swells with a completely inappropriate sense of triumph. “I just figured she would like to see how you were doing.” 

“Well, she couldn't,” says Potter, curtly, and that's the last word Snape manages to get out of him. 

** 

“You've got to trust him,” says Tonks, wearily, her hands clutching the wheel. “He's got a plan.” 

“I don't trust Snape as far as I can throw him,” says Sirius, resolutely. 

“Well, trust me, then. I've only got your best interests at heart.” 

Sirius smokes silently. 

“All right,” he concedes eventually, just as they are pulling up at the ferry terminal. “But I only give you until Monday. After that, I'm on my own, and I'm doing whatever I need to do to get to Lupin.” 

“Thank you,” says Tonks, deeply relieved, and she's so grateful that she sents him away with a kiss on the cheek. “Enjoy Paris.” 

** 

“Good evening, Peter.” 

Pettigrew almost chokes on his tea. 

“Severus?” he squeaks, his pale watery eyes wide with panic. “What are you doing here?” 

“Sorry about that,” says Moody, quite unperturbed. “There was no other way to do it.” 

“You tricked me,” says Pettigrew, looking at the safe flat's second floor window like he were considering jumping. “There was no promising Czech contact to meet. You lied to me and you tricked me.” 

“Yes, obviously,” says Snape, bored. “Now, do you want to know why I took all this trouble?” 

Pettigrew licks his lips nervously. 

“You're out of bounds, Severus,” he says. “I can't be associated with you.” 

“We won't tell,” says Moody, curtly. “And neither will you, I'd wager.” 

“I just need an address, Peter,” says Snape. “An address and a couple of confirmations.” 

“What is this all about?” says Pettigrew, trying in vain to sound authoritative. “Tell me at once!” 

“Let me start from the beginning. I'll tell the story, and you'll interrupt me if you have any corrections to make.” 

Pettigrew, having considered his options, gives a reluctant nod. 

“The whole thing started when someone inside the Circus – let's call them Tom, just for the sake of our story – went to Malfoy with a brilliant find: a Soviet source, better than any other Soviet sources the Circus had ever had. Am I right so far? Of course there's always a possibility that Malfoy could have been his own Tom, but he doesn't seem the type, does he? He's never cared much for the East, I can't see him going on on his own and buying a Russian spy.” 

Pettigrew doesn't object. 

“The new source's material is excellent, much to Malfoy's delight and Fawkes' chagrin. The Minister is over the moon. A dedicated committee is formed, with the main task of fantasizing at lenght about all the prizes that could be obtained from the Americans in exchange for Source Flamel's intelligence. Nay-sayers are ridiculed, silenced or turned away. Everything is going swimmingly – and then it gets even better, doesn't it? Flamel manages to turn someone right here in London – someone inside the Soviet Embassy. Karkaroff. What could be more convenient than that?” 

Pettigrew fat, colourless lips twist slightly. 

“It was Tom's idea, wasn't it? Set up a house, here in London, paid for with secret funds obtained directly from the Ministry's budget, and use it to meet up with Karkaroff. That way, thanks to Karkaroff's diplomatic cover and his direct link with Moscow, the stream of material from Flamel could turn into a veritable flood. The whole thing was beautiful in its simplicity – except for the fact that it was all a front for Tom's actual mission: sell out the Circus, as quickly and efficiently as humanly possible.” 

“You've got it all wrong!” cries Pettigrew, indignantly. “We _had_ to feed them a few chicken scraps, otherwise the Russians would have known Karkaroff had switched. It was all part of the plan. We knew what we were doing.” 

“Someone certainly did. Tell me, Peter, who met up with Karkaroff? You said 'we'. I'll go ahead and assume – it was you, Slughorn, obviously Malfoy, and Evans. The Flamel inner circle, if you will.” 

Pettigrew, pale as chalk, nods. 

“Very well. Peter, does the house have a guardian?” 

“Yes. Elderly woman, name of Malkin.” 

“Call her up. I'll be spending the night, and I need access to the house taping system – there is one, I assume?” 

“Of course.” 

“Very good. Last thing: how do you set up a crash meeting with Karkaroff?” 

** 

“Ollivander!” says Sirius, giovially, pressing the tip of his gun into Ollivander's ribs. “Long time no see.” 

“Black?” says Ollivander, his sweaty reflection staring at Sirius through the rear-view mirror. “Have you gone completely insane? We've orders to shoot you on sight, pretty much.” 

“Too bad I'm the one holding the gun, then,” says Sirius. “Next time, check your doors before getting into the car. Just a bit of friendly advice.” 

“What do you want? Money?” 

Sirius laughs. 

“Be serious, Ollivander. Would I do that to an old chap? Even one that's apparently ready to shoot me on sight? I'm offended. Nah, I need you to play radio for me. Start the car.” 

** 

In the darkness of the safe house's attic, next to the complex taping equipment, Snape sits silently with a loaded pistol in his right hand and a cumbersome pair of headphones over his ears. 

“They're all in,” Moody has told him on the phone just minutes before. “Peacock, Doe, Snail, Rat. All of them have arrived at the Circus. Now it's only a question of who comes out.” 

Black has done his part, then. Snape, who personally wrote the message they forced Ollivander to encode, doesn't know the content of the reply, but he can imagine the gist: London is stalling, just as they did before Lupin disappeared. London, in the person of the mole Tom, is waiting for instructions. Snape needs only wait for him to come receive them. 

He does. 

** 

At first it's the sound of a car, approaching the house's front gate. _A taxi_ , Snape thinks. No dorbell sounds: whoever the passenger was, they have the keys. Soft steps on the creaky old stairs. 

The second car arrives merely five minutes later, its tires screeching to a halt. Its occupant – Karkaroff, Snape knows – can't let himself him (a nod to proprierty, Snape supposes, a modicum of corroboration to the mole's cover story), so he abuses the doorbell loudly. A few seconds later, heavy footsteps on the stairs, and the sound of a door slamming shut. Snape, index finger on the trigger of his gun, braces himself for the moment of truth. 

The taping machine whirrs into life. 

“Good evening, Igor Igorevich,” says Lily Evans, her beautiful voice filling Snape's horrified ears, as fundamentally alien and yet as intoxicating as it had been on the phone when he accidentally let it slip that something had gone awry in Bulgaria. 

** 

“I've always liked her,” says Fleur, carefully arranging the roses Tonks has given her after her performance. “Evans, I mean. Pity is should have ended like this.” 

Tonks laughs. 

“I mean, she isn't dead or anything. In a few months, once she gets settled, you can try and arrange a visit. I'm sure there would be absolutely no problem, you know how flexible the Russians are. Also I hear Moscow is beautiful in the winter, if slightly chilly.” 

Fleur grins, her lips still violently scarlet from the stage makeup. Tonks loves her madly. 

“No, thanks, I think I'll pass. Tempting offer, though. I'll keep it in mind.” 

** 

_Late September_

Remus lands at Heathrow at midnight. It's Autumn, and the air on the tarmac is chilly, but Sirius doesn't realize or care. His whole being is thrumming madly, caught between deepest elation at the idea of seeing Remus again and dreadful certainity that nobody will get our of the small plane that he can see approaching. 

“Hey!” says Remus, as soon as he spots Sirius, an incredulous smile splitting his thin face. “You came! I can't believe it.” 

“Of course I came,” says Sirius, mad with endearment and completely unwilling to let go of Remus' hand after having shaken it. “Did you have any doubts?” 

Remus shrugs. 

“Never take anything for granted,” he jokes. “Well, _almost_ anything,” he amends, and he gives Sirius a look that makes him feel very warm and very alive all of a sudden. 

“Let's go home, wise man,” says Sirius, grinning broadly, and they set off together into the night.


End file.
